


Phantom Age

by Guardian_Rex



Series: Spirit Wars [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Character Death, Clockwork coulda warned him earlier, Existential Crisis, F/F, F/M, Kwan gets a more stable personality, Leader! Danny, M/M, Redoing an old thing, Resetting the world despite the warnings, Sam's activism rears its head again, Starting Over, There will be little emphasis on the gay and more on the plot, Tucker gets some damn spotlight, Valerie exists, a few of those in this, everyone gets a personality in general, people die, savant par, shit happens, the author gains some sort of direction as to where this is supposed to go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-18 08:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guardian_Rex/pseuds/Guardian_Rex
Summary: The Spirit World, and the Earth are a pair of dimensions that are rather close to each other and share a bit of a history.  One of these histories involves nature creating a bond between them.  Hybrids.  Now given the monicer 'halfas' these hybrids are few and far between in the Spirit World, as portals have been difficult to open up until about a year ago.  Now, the three most well known Halfas have a bit of a surprise ahead of them - the worlds want more bridges therebetween!  Which means that all across the world, humanity shall learn that there is an afterlife, and you can get your foot in the doorway without fully dying.  Just half dying.  How will Danny and his friends deal with this, and the growing threat of the Guys in White?





	1. warnings, debates, and cheat codes

**Author's Note:**

> Yoooooo whatup? So yes, I did take this down, reupload a new beginning, and then change the beginning again. I finally found some proper structure so I should be getting you some good ol chapters in this time and know where the fuck i'm gonig with this. Enjoy the second rough draft of Phantom Age's beginning

The clang of green steel against steel, a now familiar and welcome sound to the fifteen-year-old, rang through the circular training arena.  Ducking a swing, the boy nicked his opponent’s leg and backed out of the way just in time to avoid a kick to the head.  Unfortunately, Danny didn’t see the swing of the empty hand until it threw him just across a line of white paint.  It glowed red.  His loss.  Normalcy was such a relative thing, as one’s normal can be another’s bizarre.  For Danny, sparring with a Cyclops was as normal as a stroll down the street.

Accepting the large hand extended to him, Danny got to his feet, needing to regain his breath.  “Good fight Asceptious,” the teen grinned.  “I don’t think I’ve lasted that long against you since you went easy on me.”  He took a bow before stretching.

Asceptious, a fifteen foot tall, purple-skinned Cyclops with a big brown eye, gently patted the young fighter on his back.  “I wanted you to have at least one win under your belt, and you’ve improved greatly Danny.  Watch out for large fast limbs, most of us in the Spirit World are a lot faster than we seem.”

Danny nodded and opened his mouth to reply when he heard a ringing in his ear.  “I’m sorry, Asceptious, we’ll have to spar again later.”  One final shake of a hand that easily engulfed his own entirely and Danny walked toward his bag, switching off the mute of his Fenton Phone.  “What’s up guys?”

“Got an upgraded emergency Danny,” Tucker’s voice called through the ear piece, a mite higher than usual.  “Technus hacked into the street lamps, traffic lights and traffic cameras all over the city.  I’d get him out, but I’d need physical access to the control center for each system.  It’d be a lot faster if a certain hero came and shoved him out of the tech and into a soup container.”

“I’m on my way,” the now silver-haired teen muttered as he pushed his speed in the evergreen void of the Netherworld.

* * *

 

When Danny arrived on the scene, he saw Technus – with his crazy gray-white hair done into a tall cubic afro and black and white clothing turned into a hazmat suit with a cape replacing the hood – cackling in the air and waving his hands as though conducting a symphony.  What he was truly doing had Danny questioning the limits of the effects ectoplasm had on the physical world.

Street lights twisted like snakes, burning Greek fire through the air.  People ran screaming and left behind the injured in a blind panic, though even they still struggled to get away.  Before Danny had a chance to shield him, a man was made a dark red scorch mark on the pavement.  Danny split into five, sending the invisible duplicates to grab the civilians while his eyes burned like torches.

“That hair is the worst I’ve seen on you Technus, that’s honestly saying something.”  Emerald plasma sliced through the air like a scythe, knocking the technokinetic ghost into one of the nearby buildings.  “And I gotta say, copying both me _and_ Plasmius for fashion is just sad.”  Twisting around a bolt of electricity from the hole, Danny clicked his tongue.  “I mean, the hazmat might’ve worked if you used a hood to cover up your poor dental hygiene but the cape is inexcusably dorky.”

“Damnable child,” the irate Technus screeched as he flew out of the building and aimed the various lights along the street at Danny.  “You dare interrupt my moment of glory!  You shall not defeat me, Technus 3.0, this time!  This time, you shall be erased from this Earth, and I shall reign supreme!”

“An interesting theory,” Danny snorted, forming a hole in his body to evade a laser, dancing around the beams of light.  “Let me propose an alternate one: I am going to win this time!”  Firing off a marble sized plasma ball, Danny grinned at the cry of outrage and pain from his elder enemy.  “This is a theory I have built up from the following postulates.”  Looking through the eyes of his duplicates, Danny saw that the last civilian was safe.  “One: I win every time.”  A duplicate attempted to enter one of the street lamps and was vaporized by the energy crackling within.  “Two: this is a time.”  Instead, the duplicates grabbed onto the poles and sucked out the energy, sending all of it to Danny.

“I, Technus, Master of All Technology, will burn through you with these street lamps of death and move on to conquer the world!”  A flash of light akin to Danny’s transformation rings spread out in Technus’ hands to reveal an electric mace that used electrodes instead of spikes.  The elder specter didn’t notice the darkening of the sky or the street, only swung his mace at the hero and directed the arching electricity at him.  Ectoplasma was deflected by the mace; bolts of it flew at the teen who danced around Technus’ attacks like it was all a game, laughter echoing off of the buildings and cars.

“I gotta admit this is a semi-intelligent plan of yours Technus.”  Danny hissed as he was struck by the electricity, the smell of burnt hazmat and ectoplasmic flesh wafting through the air before a shield rose between him and the next bolt of electricity.  “How long did it take you to think it up?”  His shield went from toxic green to icy blue, sparks no longer dancing off of the barrier but brightening it.  “I can’t exactly say it’s perfect after all, I could push you out of those computers and I know someone who can out hack you in their sleep.”

“Foolish, arrogant, ignoramus,” Technus snarled, red eyes shining through the lenses of his glasses.  “Burn in the light of the modern world,” Technus cackled, aiming the street lamps at his teen foe.  His cackling stopped short when he noted the loss of connection to his weapons and the crisp cold in the air.  Frost had gathered on the street lamps, and Technus shot a glare at Danny.  “Why is the temperature dropping?  Those lasers should be giving off beams of three hundred and thirty-four degrees!”

“Yeah, I can tell from the burn marks on the ground.”  Four identical voices could be heard from all around, but not once did Danny open his mouth.  “But if someone were to steal all of that energy, the lasers would have to chill out, now wouldn’t they?”  Duplicates flickered in and out of visibility, the original doing the same, and frost covered the ground like snakes creeping toward helpless prey.  “Isn’t it fascinating how much energy ectoplasm can contain and transfer from body to body?”  Dark blue chains coiled around Technus and slammed him into the nearest lamp post.  “Some thinking time I the Thermos will do you some good.”

Once Technus was in the Thermos, Danny did his best to fix the lamp posts while releasing the energy he had taken back into the atmosphere.  It was a sloppy job, but he had only recently thought of cleaning up.  But, even when doing a non-violent good deed, the hero was interrupted by fire from an ectorifle. "Aw come on! I was putting everything back too!" Dodging another shot, he took to the skies and prepared to disappear; glad that his ectosignature became nearly untraceable when he reverted to human form. He never got the chance.

* * *

 

As soon as he rounded a corner, Danny’s vision was filled with a familiar electric blue light.  Something like static rolled across his skin and jumpsuit.  In a moment – or an eternity, it was hard to tell which – the half ghost was surrounded by clocks, mirrors and a chair he was about to fly into.  Thanking Pandora for his improved reflexes, the ghost boy flipped around and slowed down so that he merely had a rough landing, rather than a crash. Looking around, the ghost boy quickly located the Master of Time floating in the center of the room and glared at them.

"A little warning next time, Clockwork? At the very least lemme hear you saying 'Time out,' ya know?" The Time Master chuckled and floated closer, giving the teen a pat on the back. "It's a bit rude to interrupt someone's dramatic escape from the green, hot, death rays of his parents as they chase after his still lingering soul."

"So you've actually been reading the books that Samantha offers you?" Seeing the boy pout, the now infantile spirit laughed softly and offered a plate of cookies. "Would you like a cookie? I baked them myself."

Danny's hand hovered over the cookies a moment before accepting one. With a bite and a noise of content, he took the whole plate. "Two questions: why did you make cookies, and why exactly am I here?  I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t teleport me up here just for some cookies and tea.”

Quirking a brow, the elder spirit raised their staff, and their mirrors changed from flickering moments of every time to images of Danny himself, as well as his clone Danielle and several people he didn't recognize, as well as an unknown landmass somewhere in the Ghost Zone. "To answer your first question, I spoke with the various incarnations of myself across the timelines, and we all concurred that those cookies are the best way to stop your ranting.”  Shifting into the form of a middle-aged being, Clockwork gestured to their mirrors. "As for why you are here, a series of events is approaching, and you, as well as Vlad and Danielle, are the three main elements thereof, being the only known half ghosts in current existence." They waited for Danny to swallow before continuing. "The number of halfas in the worlds is going to increase in coming months." Even without the cookie in his mouth, the snow-haired teen still managed to choke on air.

Once he had regained his breath, Danny shot into the air, cookies scattering on the floor, and stared at the mirrors.  “Wait, what?  How can there be more halfas appearing? I thought only Mom, Dad, and Vlad were able to bridge the worlds?" Staring up at the largest of the mirror, he tried to memorize the faces he saw. Dark skin and purple eyes, a smattering of freckles, a black shirt over tan skin. Each image flashed by too quickly for him to see the whole things. "How is this possible?"

"The will of the worlds is something not even I can fully understand, Daniel. The barrier between the Spirit World Giestaeal and the Earth is weakening, and stable gateways between the two shall open." Danny turned burning eyes away from the mirrors, the events reflected within too much for his brain to process. "Human beings, ghosts and spirits alike shall be caught between the worlds, and I brought you here because of that. A threat approaches that cannot be defeated without you protecting the new halfas. They must be trained and prepared to combat the forces endangering both of our worlds."

"And how,” Danny held up a hand as though actually paying attention in class. "Is someone who can only manage three thirty-six an hour on a good day going to jump around the world?  Without a passport or knowledge of foreign languages or cultures, how am I supposed to get this done? ” Learning tactics from Frostbite and Pandora alike had made it harder to charge into a task like this all gung-ho. "Also, what kind of threat could possibly endanger the entire spirit world? That's the formal title of this dimension, right?" The bleach-haired boy turned his gaze from the various gears in the room back to the blue-skinned child steadily aging before him. "I keep hearing Pandora and Frostbite call it that."

Clockwork nodded a faint smile on their lips. "Very good, Daniel. The name of the planet we currently reside upon is Geistaeal, and as we have yet to interact with any other planets within this dimension, that is what we call this dimension as well. The formal name, however, is the Spirit World." They could practically see the information being filed away for later thought in the hero's head and felt their smile grow. "I did say that this would be happening within a few months, Daniel. You have time to prepare. I cannot give you all the answers."

"You can only point me towards the right questions." Danny let out a loud sigh, dropping nearly to the floor in exasperation. "Ok, the passports I can handle, but getting from country to country in time to be of any help in case of an attack isn't something I can see myself doing without help." The teen began pacing in vertical circles, frowning at Clockwork when he caught the mocking smirk on the Time spirit's wrinkled face. "I need to find a way to get from Amity to the other halfas at a reasonable pace. Maybe a teleporter, some way of opening portals either from the Spirit world to Earth or from place to place on earth." He raised a brow at Clockwork and gave an upside-down smile. "I also need to find a place to train them, which would optimally be in the Spirit World, away from people like the GIW."

"You may be able to find such a place that suits those needs, Daniel. The Spirit World is a vast and ancient realm, having been here long before even me." The middle-aged spirit tossed their staff between their hands with a hum. "I'm sure there's an abandoned hunk of rock for you to practice on without notifying the worlds about the presence of new half-ghosts."

Danny bit into another cookie and nodded, a thought settled a frown on his face, ruining the taste of the delicious cookie.  “How does Vlad play into all of this?  I’m glad to have Time on my side,” he grinned at Clockwork’s snort, “but he’ll find out eventually and I’d like to know what I should do to prepare for that.”

Clockwork shifted into the form of an elder once more and twirled their staff in thought. Daniel believed it a pause for dramatic effect, but with Events such as these, even the Time Guardian did not know what exactly would happen. "There are various methods of dealing with Vlad, Daniel," they finally answered. "One of which is to remind him of what he truly wants; he shall soon have an opportunity for that."

"Are you saying that he'll have an opportunity to murder my father when the new halfas appear?" The teen's eyes brightened with protective fury. "Because I'm not gonna let that happen, Clockwork."

"No, Daniel," they sighed and shook their head. "Think about your trip into the possible future, and you'll realize that your father's death is not what he truly wants. I will give you one more bit of direct assistance." Weight could be felt in the half ghost's pocket, and the mirrors returned to their flickering states, showing futures, pasts, and presents of each world that Danny knew and did not. "We all have our crosses to bear, and choices to make. Think of it this way: at least I'm the only one teleporting you away from your regularly scheduled half-life."

With a flash of blue light that lasted an eternal instant, Danny was hovering over his bed, confused, frustrated, and wishing he could sleep this entire situation away.

* * *

 

Laughter filled the locker room as the football team poured in to hit the showers and head home from practice.  One sophomore, lightly tanned from all his time in the sun with the Ravens, began taking off his equipment as soon as he was in the room.  Shoving everything in his locker, the teen grabbed a towel and slapped the back of the blond next to him.  “You did pretty good Dash, but you really need to work on your legs some more.  I bet Fenton could outrun you if he tried hard enough.”  The frown he was met with brought laughter to Kwan’s lips.

“Just like that, you lost cookie privileges,” Dash responded with a playful frown, taking off his equipment as well.  “See, words can hurt your privileges real easy.  Just ask Paulina how quick I stopped letting her taste my cooking after she said I was dumb.”

“Ah, but she was pointing out how dumb it is not to study, and then take it out on nerds,” Kwan reminded him, heading into the spray of water the other players had already started up for the showers, followed closely by his companion since grade school.  “And I was just pointing out that while you throw like a cannon, certain nerds can outrun you because you don’t give your legs enough attention 90 percent of the time.”

“Wow Kwan, I was under the impression that you _enjoyed_ getting laid,” Dash said pointedly.  “Clearly, I was mistaken.  I’ll correct my plans for us tonight and for the future in general.”  Dash let the water rinse away some of the sweat before really cleaning off.  He dodged a wet towel snapped his way and glared at the freshman who did it.

Kwan snickered and shook his head, washing away the grime at a more sedated pace than his disgruntled boyfriend.  “C’mon Dash, you know I’m just tryna help.  Besides, you haven’t chased after Fenton or any of the other nerds in a while.  I was gonna put on a little dance for you.”  Some of the older players tossed out a few suggestive comments and hollers, earning an eye roll from Kwan.  “No dance for the rest of you.  You only get to see what you can right now.”  More laughter echoed off the tiles before everyone went back to their own discussions of after practice plans.

“You might actually convince someone that your face is red from practice and hot water some day.”  Dash slapped Kwan’s wet back and rinsed off.  “So, were you really planning on showing me your latest dance moves?”  The other nodded, and the blond whistled.  “Guess there actually is a benefit to easin up on the dweebs.  Well,” he shrugged, grabbing a towel as he stepped out of the spray.  “Other than Phantom’s approval.”

“What about Phantom?”  Kwan stepped out as well and started drying off, the freshmen who idolized both Dash and Phantom following his example to hear more.  “Did you talk to him?  Share some of your famous baking recipes with him for an autograph?”  Kwan chuckled when he was elbowed in the ribs.  The blond was always a blatant fan boy of Phantom’s, and while at first, the running back felt a bit jealous of the ghostly teen, he realized that it was just a bit of hero worship and found himself teasing Dash about constantly.

“Yeah I did talk to him,” the quarterback said proudly, though his smirk didn’t reach as far as it usually did, just like the others this past day.  “The other night he helped me kick a ghost’s ass.  I asked him for his autograph, but he gave me some advice instead.  Told me to stop wailin on dweebs.  Basically cause they aren’t worth my time, which I agree with.”  There were sounds of agreement and congratulations, but once eyes were off of him, Dash’s smirk fell into a frown.  Kwan nudged him, and he nodded.  “Later, babe.”  It was hard to hear, but Kwan knew he’d live up to it.

They finished up in the locker room, passed on Nasty Burger, and went straight to Dash’s house.  The blond’s father was usually more pleasant when Kwan was around, keeping his swears to a minimum, lest his important business partner change terms of funding due to his son’s opinion about the man.  Once they were in Dash’s room, Kwan sat at his desk and spun the wheelie chair around.  “So, you gonna tell me what he really said to you now, or later?”  Kwan’s chin rested on his arms; brow raised as Dash took a seat on his bed and removed his letterman jacket.  “Cause I can wait, but I’m a bit worried that Phantom was an asshole to you because sometimes strong people can be assholes to their fans.”

“Nah, he wasn’t an asshole.”  Dash shook his head rapidly to dispute the other’s worries.  “He’s just as much the hero he was when I got shrunken down with him at Fenton’s house.  But that’s the thing.  Somethin happened at the end there that I didn’t tell ya about.  This newest talk with Phantom got me thinkin about it.”  He laid back and kicked off his sneakers, staring up at the ceiling and feeling ever grateful that Kwan was a patient guy.  “He saved me from this giant snake thing, and then when I thanked him and asked him for an autograph, he said that he doesn’t give autographs to bullies like me.”  There was a sharp intake of breath from Kwan, but nothing more.  “I asked him what the hell that was supposed to mean, ya know?  I thought that we had bonded that one time at Fenton’s place, but he said that I’m just lucky that none of the nerds and geeks I wail on go to the police and file charges for assault and battery.”  Dash screwed his eyes tight and took a deep breath.  “Kwan, he said that _I_ was an asshole.  And… I think he’s kind of right.

“If Fenton or Mikey or Foley ever told the police - hell if they told their parents - I’d probably go to _juvie_ or somethin.”  Dash folded an arm underneath his head, and one over his eyes.  “If anyone else had given me this speech, I’da laughed in their face and said that the dweebs deserve it or something, but _Danny Phantom_?  The superhero who keeps the town safe all the time?  Well if someone that awesome is calling me out on my shit, I’ve gotta be doin somethin wrong, right?”

Kwan nodded slowly, mostly to himself, and for a beat of silence, picked apart what Dash had said in his head.  Danny Phantom, local teenage vigilante, called Dash out on his actions, and the blond listened.  The jock doubted that Dash would have listened if he said something about his behaviors so overtly, hence the luring temptation of seeing his latest improvements in dancing instead.  Finally, Kwan nodded once more and hummed.  “Well, yeah.  You’ve been an asshole since freshman year started.”  The betrayed look on Dash’s face nearly broke Kwan’s heart, but he wasn’t going to sugar coat this.  “You’ve beaten up innocent kids, and came short of drowning them in toilet water, all for fun or cause you got a bad grade.  And I’m just as guilty for going along with it for the whole year.”  He let those words sink in, watching Dash’s face morph from scandalized betrayal to anger, to resignation.  “But, you and I have both let up a lot on those behaviors since the sophomore year started.  I stopped entirely, and you barely even said mean things to Fenton before this talk with Phantom happened.”

“Yeah,” Dash scoffed, turning once more to the ceiling.  “And look where that got me.”  The blond raised a brow when he felt his hand taken into a familiar pair.

“A better grade point average, notable improvement in your football skills, and you have the best boyfriend ever.”  Kwan counted off the points on Dash’s fingers before kissing the back of his hand.  “You’re not a complete asshole, like your dad.  I know that’s what you’re thinking, and you need to stop thinking it.  Bein a douche isn’t genetic.”  A small smile spread over Dash’s face, and Kwan gave his hand a light squeeze.  “Now, what’s this thing that you forgot to tell me and started thinking about?”

Dash’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his eyes settled firmly on Kwan’s.  Whatever he had been searching for, he had found it, as he closed his eyes and tried to relax the rising tension in his shoulders.  “After me and Phantom got unshrunk, I ask him if he wanted to give Fenton a swirly for the sake of the moment.  He pointed the shrink ray thing at me and pulled the trigger, and the world was huge again for a whole two minutes.”  He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.  “Kwan, those two minutes felt like hell.  Everything was bigger than me, the tiniest breeze felt like I was about to be pushed over, and I was terrified that he’d leave me like that.”

Kwan frowned deeply at the thought of Dash suffering such a traumatic experience, leaving the chair to wrap his arms around his boyfriend.  “Hey, you’re regular sized and bigger than just about everything, ok?  That was a dick move on Phantom’s part, no matter what you suggested to do.”  Kwan decided at that moment that if he ever got the chance, he’d punch Phantom in the face for messing up his boyfriend like this.  “Ghosts… they don’t always _get_ the whole human experience.  He might be a hero, but that doesn’t mean he’s always right, ok?”

A nod from Dash and Kwan let out a soft breath.  “I’m gonna call my parents and ask if I can stay over, ok?  You’re not sleeping alone tonight.”  A smile blossomed on the xanthochroid’s face, and Kwan stood up to call his mother.

* * *

 

The clack of keystrokes filled the room as much as the soft yellow light of the customized screen. Even without a GUI involved, Tucker Foley does not work without style, cleaning up after a ghost or no. When he hit enter, the responses to his commands played across the screen in pleasantly dark blue text. The result did not match the aesthetic. Glaring at the defiant code the teen took a slow deep breath and pushed away from the screen. He shut it all down and stood to stretch. "I need food if I'm gonna deal with this crap." Heading downstairs, he ran over the code in his head while reciting the recipe for the best burgers in the universe under his breath. A few minutes later, and Tuck was scribbling down equations on a napkin to keep from risking any grease on his precious PDA. "Hi Mom, hi Dad, anything new at work?" Even though his mother and father were closing the front door and he was in the dining room, Tucker didn't need to raise his voice above normal speaking volume. The two heard and replied just as he did.

"The office was a mess and thanks to the latest team of black hats across the country, I've had to crunch the numbers for about a thousand different accounts today." Maurice Foley, a taller man with a mustache that belonged in a commercial, walked past the kitchen while taking off his jacket. "I'd have thought you and your friends would have gotten rid of them by now."

"Now Maurice, you can't expect a fourteen-year-old or seven to take down a network of cyber terrorists in a day." Angela chided her husband while switching from her heels to her house shoes. Her pearly earrings remained, however, as she strode into the kitchen with a frown. "While that will take a week at least, cleaning up after yourself in the kitchen only takes a few moments, Tucker Shazad Foley." Swallowing his burger meat quickly, Tucker got up and worked at top speed to clear the mess from his mother's kitchen while she checked the fridge and pantry. "We'll need to go shopping soon, that appetite is burning through our groceries."

"I'm sorry mom, but I'm a growing boy who needs his protein," Tucker defended as he pushed things into the trash can before grabbing some cleaning spray and spraying the countertop. "I'm thinking of selling some Danny Phantom merchandise to keep up with the calories I burn." Grabbing a cloth, he also picked up his burger and took another bite. Aqua eyes fell upon a strand of hair on his mother's blouse, and he plucked it away. "One day, I shall create a fashion line with nothing but our shed fur."

"Hair, sweetie, we rarely need to shift nowadays." Angela patted Tucker's head and pulled out ingredients for the actual dinner of the night. "And make sure to get Danny's permission before you start selling merchandise with his name on it. He should also get a good percentage of the profits." A few vegetables were pulled out along with the cutting board, and Tucker wiped away the cleaning solution. "Plus, that's a bit creepy, making clothes out of hair."

"Creepy, yet natural." Maurice walked in and stole Tuck's red beret to ruffle his hair for a moment. "It's how humans have survived for all these centuries." He replaced the hat before Tucker got too uppity and grabbed some pots and pans to help his wife with preparing dinner. "Just be sure to make it hard to notice that it's actual hair, and figure out a way to keep lice off.  No one wants clothes infested with bloodsuckers." Tucker and his mom rolled their eyes at the Foley patriarch, and the tech savvy teen took his burger to finish up in his room. "Play: Dance with the Devil," Tucker muttered a few choice words about mocking his affections as he sped up the stairs away from the music, and his father's laughter.

Once returned to his glorious spinning throne with hands clean of grease, Tucker got to work on the previous problem. "Technus really upgraded his code this time. I'll need time that I don't have for this one." It wouldn't take long for some black or gray hat to notice the latest remnants of netherworldian tech magic still floating around Amity Park servers and Tucker couldn't risk anyone finding Danny's secret ID in all of that info. Pushing away from his computer once again, Tucker began running his personally crafted anti-virus and glared at the screen.  A voice that he recognized as his own from childhood whispered in his ear, whining about how long it was going to take.  A deeper voice noted that black hats who traced the virus that hit global systems would find it soon.  _After Valerie got her upgrade, Technus' code has been the greatest prize any hacker could get._   The voices warned.  _Learning the identity of a being with a million dollars still on his head would be the best thing to happen to any of them._   "I'll need to go for a cheat code. I probably should have thought of this forever ago." Shaking off thoughts of how freeing a linen skirt felt on him, the geek leaped from his window clad in black and ran through the trees to the nearest rooftop.

A glance at the moon showed that he'd have to deal with the monthly family gathering soon, and did not enjoy thoughts of going to any of his aunt's or uncle's houses for two nights. Losing himself in both his thoughts and the feeling of setting his true physical skills free, Tucker almost didn't notice his location in time. Once close enough to the museum, the boy typed a few things into Reine.  Cameras along his needed path were set to loop footage from the past ten minutes or so for twenty.  Motion, pressure and thermal reactive security measures were all disabled. "Honestly, Damon, you couldn't have picked somewhere else to grab a few bucks on your security?" Tuck mumbled to himself as he opened a window and headed toward the Egyptian exhibit. "That took forever to figure out." In three minutes, he was in front of the Duulaman display. Carefully sidestepping the mirror on the sarcophagus, Tucker grinned at the scepter in the display case. It was about the length of his arm, shaped into an inverted Ankh with horns at the top, and held a beetle jewel between the horns. Reaching out to the gold inlaid with malachite, Tucker touched the glass with a gloved hand and reached around it for some form of lock. When he found an electronic one, he made quick work of it and took the scepter from its case.

The metal was warm under his hand, power thrumming in his veins and vibrating each molecule to the beat of an unknown song that felt so very familiar. Azure light weaved around him, and the teen's black clothing was replaced with white, black, gold and violet robes, green dispersed throughout the royal attire where gold would normally be found. For a moment, Tucker was king, filled with a power unrivaled throughout the world. He was strong enough to have everything and anything he wanted.  The world gained all kinds of alternate depths, life forces and names lit up like fairy lights around him.  The black hats that pestered his father’s company were compromised with a simple thought, human trafficking rings broken up and busted by invisible forces; murderers were slain in much the same way that they killed.

When he came back to himself, Tucker was in his room and wearing his normal clothes.  “Whoa, teleporting is a wild ride,” he muttered, sitting upon his glorious spinning throne.  “Note to self; don‘t do that again anytime soon.  Now then, to get rid of Technus' code.”  Oceanic ribbons of light filled the room and Tucker saw the code in front of him, the scepter’s light eating it up.  “This is just like that time I accidentally drank wine, but way more vivid.  I am totally keeping this.”  Glancing at the overt artifact, he tilted his head as thoughts raced through his head.  “How I’m gonna manage that though is a mystery…”  Warmth blossomed at his fingertips once more and the scepter melted in on itself. Within seconds, Tucker wore a band of gold with a malachite scarab jewel around his finger and grinned to himself. "I'll have to figure out how this thing works soon because daddy just found his ultimate cheat code."  The geek set down the ring and fired up DOOMED, blissfully unaware that he had done anything besides burn Technus' infectious code from the world.


	2. The Day Ends on Many Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Val goes and makes a Deal, Sam has an argument with her parents, and Febe gets to meet hers again finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did just finish writing this. I hope you all like it! Those of you still paying any attention to this story.
> 
> Update: I went to my beta reader, he gave suggestions, here's how it turned out.

"I can't believe you support this!"  Such cries of indignation hardly turned an ear, but this time it was backed with a slam of fists against the dinner table.  "This Anti-Ecto Act would mean trouble for everyone, including our town hero Danny Phantom!"  One of the butlers quietly pulled away the barely touched plate of vegetables and left Sam's protein shake at her spot of the table.  Her Mother and Father, on the other side of the table, wore matching frowns that had become almost customary for any interaction with their liberal daughter.  "Did you even consider that before you agreed with those trigger happy government spooks?"

"Sammykins, I think you need to take a deep breath and consider your words."  Pamela, her Mother, said in a measured tone that always made Sam's hair stand on end.  "The Anti-Ecto Act will help in the fight against the ghosts.  It won't affect us in any negative way, sweety."

"It strips the rights of any entity contaminated with ectoplasm, which is this entire town.  We are all contaminated with ectoplasm.  The city was pulled into a whole dimension made of it!"  The goth sat down at the silent request of her grandmother and glowered at her parents.  "This farce will let the Guys in White whisk away anyone they suspect of being a ghost or related to ghosts in any way.  This includes our town hero, who actually does keep the ghosts from demolishing this town and moving on to the rest of the world.  The Fentons only manage to catch one low-level ghost a month, and the Guys in White do even less than that because Phantom carries the weight of protecting us."  Sam's nails dug into the wood as the emotionless words of the white-suited agents O and K toward ghosts echoed through her head.  "If the GIW got their hands on Phantom, he'd be put through painful experiment after painful experiment until he turned into goop.  They'd do that to a child who had to have died only a few months before they all started popping up, and they'll do anything to get him."

"Samantha, while the town was pulled into the Ghost Zone," Jeremy rolled his eyes at the name given to the other world, "that hardly means we're all still infected with ectoplasm.  It has to fade away some time, and it's been about a year since the Ghost King tried to add us to his dominion."  The blond's eyes slowly narrowed and his fingers laced together, causing Sam to tense all over.  "How do you know how many ghosts the Fentons and GIW are able to capture monthly?"

"You talk about the ghost boy as though you've asked him when he died and he answered,"  Pamela noted pointedly.  "Have you been hanging out with that undead vigilante as well as that Fenton boy?"

"I know how often the parents of my best friend catch a ghost because he talks to me about it, the GIW hunting numbers are publically accessible information if you know how to search for it, and."  Sam's tone grew as cold as Danny's ice.  "It's not as though Phantom looks like someone my age, flies around the city as though he knows it, and quips during his fights the same way that someone who died recently would.  Only a fool would consider obvious facts like those."

“Speaking of Phantom, that tin foil pillar supporting your argument for why the act is a bad idea,” Pamela skated past the end of Sam’s quippy response.  “I hardly think a hero would go around abducting the mayor, causing property damage he has no means of paying for and robbing banks.”

“The ghosts he fights cause more damage to the city than Phantom does, Mother!”  Sam glared across the table and downed her protein shake in one go.  “Phantom does his best to minimize damage during his battles, and when the mayor was asked, he admitted to not remembering a thing beyond deciding Maddie Fenton was supposed to oversee the lockdown.  And Freakshow admitted to having controlled the ghosts gathered along his circus gothica tour, including Danny Phantom.”

“That still doesn’t account for the property damage, Samantha,” Jeremy reminded her.  “Regardless of Phantom’s intentions, the city still suffers whenever he gets into a grudge match with one of those murderous creatures.”  The man pushed his plate away, having lost his appetite.  “The Anti Ecto Act is basically the same as the only inarguably good law Mayor Masters came up with.  Before he repealed his changes, crime both human and ghostly had gone down in this town.”

Ida, who had listened while finishing up her meal, set down her fork and cleared her throat.  “Jeremy, you and I both know that isn’t true.  Masters’ laws only condemned violent ghosts, taken down carefully by hunters that he had overseen the training of personally.”  Jeremy was respectfully quiet as his Mother spoke, knowing better than to interrupt her when she was speaking so calmly.  “This Anti Ecto Act would make it so that the children who caught that bug last year, anyone who got possessed by the policemen ghosts, people who live in neighborhoods that see a lot of ghost activity could be deemed ‘dangerous entities contaminated with ectoplasm.'”

“Ida, while I respect your experience with the law,” Pamela started, cutting off whatever response her husband was about to give.  “Jeremy does have a point.  Whatever contamination that comes from ectoplasm should have worn off by now for the majority of the town, and for those that live in heavily haunted areas a certain level of contamination will be taken into account based on how much of the stuff is in the air.  It’s all right there in the proposed bill.”

“And if the Guys in White think the ghost boy needs to be brought in for his crimes, how do we know that they’re wrong?”  Jeremy waved away a servant offering him a refill on his drink.  “He’s a violent teenager with a lot of destructive power whose only current opposition are a few agents, the Fentons, and another vigilante.  How do we know he doesn’t do anything wrong when he’s not waging war in the streets of our little town?”

“Not to mention all the ghosts in this town do nothing but fight, destroy property, attempt to take over the world, and brainwash the populace.”  Pamela glared at a space near Sam’s head, eyes narrowing in thought.  “I honestly wonder why we still live in this place sometimes.  My point, however, is that I’ve not seen a ghost do anything that could be called good violence.”

“Even if Phantom could legitimately be called a hero, he’s still only one out of millions, probably billions, who treat the world of the living as a place to throw all of their tantrums whenever they get upset over something.  We need to give the government more support to keep them out.”

“Phantom is one ghost out of a trillion, but you’re judging ghosts based on the actions of twenty-two out of countless others.”  Sam crushed her protein shake can in her anger.  “That’s a hypocritical argument, and you know it!  There are at least fifty different ghosts around town that do nothing but watch over their families and mind their own business away from the violence in the Ghost Zone.  It’s why no one in this town likes the Fentons even after ghosts were a proven fact: they want all ghost destroyed, just like the GIW, and that includes the good and peaceful ones who haven’t done anything wrong!  It’s like saying all Muslims are terrorists, or all Germans are Nazis or all black people are criminals!”

Jeremy and Pamela both scoffed, the blond glaring at his daughter.  “If there are good ghosts as you claim, then they can either go back to the afterlife where they belong or explain to the GIW that they aren’t doing anything wrong.  I’m sure that the loved ones they’re visiting can vouch for their moral alignment.”

“Jeremy Adi Manson, do you really think that government agents are going to give two damns about what the people think about the people they’re rounding up for torture?”  Ida raised her voice just a bit, grabbing her son’s attention along with the others.  “Sam told me about a date that she went on with this one faker, bleached his hair cause he thought it looked cool,  The Guys in White thought that he was Phantom, and do you know what they did?”

“They fired missiles at me, Elliot, and Tucker from a military grade jet at an observatory populated by civilians of all ages,” Sam said.  “We barely got away with our lives, and only because the real Danny Phantom swooped in and saved us!  And they made sure that this never got to the news.”

“As far as those  _ people  _ are concerned, any ghost or human that approves of ghosts is an abomination to blame all of life’s problems on, and get rid of.  They could take some of the ectoplasm from their guns and slip it into anything, and say that ghosts have possessed the workers and put it there to try and kill people.”  Ida slammed a fist down on the table herself and knocked over her glass.  One of the butlers cleaned up the spill almost immediately, and Ida took a breath to try and calm herself.  “And what about me, Jeremy?  Pamela?”

“What about you, Ida?  I highly doubt that the GIW are going to contaminate our cellophane sticks with ectoplasm, so I don’t see how this affects you.”  Pamela laced her fingers together before spreading them out in a finger pyramid.  “Are you going to say that your best friends with a ghost or something equally as ludicrous, further influencing Samantha to make up any lie possible to get her way?”

“Pamela!”  Jeremy shouted at his wife, shocking her out of her staring contest with the elder Manson.  “I understand that you’re upset, but that doesn’t mean that you should insinuate that my Mother is spreading lies or teaching Sam to do the same!  Mom is a great influence, and while I don’t completely agree with her, she knows what she’s talking about.”

“To answer your question, Pammy, no, I wasn’t going to say I’m best friends with a ghost.”  She leaned back in her electric scooter.  “I was talking about when I die.”  The room went silent, and Ida’s careful eye noted that everyone had actually stopped breathing for a moment.  It was a challenge not to roll her eyes at the dramatic response, but she needed to maintain the air of gloom and doom.  “Let’s face it, Jeremy, I’m old.  I’ve lived a long life, did a lot with it, and it’s not going to last much longer.  With all the ectoplasm around this place, I have no doubt my ghost will appear about a minute after I die.”  She nodded towards Sam, keeping an eye on her son and daughter in law.  “They’ll shoot at kids to get the one ghost that saves the town.  You think they’ll let me go free just because I haven’t done anything wrong?”

Having said her part and had enough of the conversation, Ida drove her scooter away from the table, and Sam rose to follow her out.  It was probably the first time Ida’s words had ever upset Sam while upsetting Jeremy and Pamela, and the goth wasn’t sure how to feel about this.  “Ok, Sam now is not the time to focus on death.”  The teen marched up to her room and pulled out her phone, setting her death metal to just under tinnitus causing levels of noise pollution.  She found the contact labeled S.B. “I can’t let this Act pass, and since Mom and Dad aren’t going to help, I’ll have to get some help from an old friend.”

* * *

 

When Valerie came home, she strode up the stairs of her apartment building and took just enough time to keep from breaking key in the tricky lock.  When she was inside, she was met with enough boxes to merit the attention of a, particularly annoying ghost.  Thankfully for him, he wasn't dumb enough to try and attack her at her home.  After all, her Father knew she was a ghost hunter.  Valerie no longer had to keep her defensive capabilities hidden.

Valerie headed to her room, grabbing a medium sized box, and continued packing.  Finally!  She and her Father had finally saved up enough money together to leave this crummy apartment.  Val had packed up her samples of Phantom's ectoplasm from previous battles first, sealed up tight and secure.  Now, she was stuffing all the things that she had managed to hold onto when they had to move to the apartment in the first place.  Her old bear that she'd never admit to keeping, her old gi that she never put back on, sentimental things like that.

When the box was halfway full, Valerie was surprised to hear her Father come in as well.  It was pretty damn early for him to be getting home since he worked double shifts most days.  "Valerie, honey?"  Dad called out, and the huntress paused in her packing to go and hug her dad.  He let out a slight wheeze when she gave him a squeeze, the results of lifting up heavy weaponry on a regular basis and keeping up with her martial arts.  "Honey, I have wonderful news!"  Dad placed both hands on Val's shoulders and smiled at her in a way that he hadn't in too long.  "I'm finally getting a promotion!  Upper management finally discovered what happened and agreed that being unprepared for the supernatural before we knew that it was real isn't something I should have been punished for.  I'm being promoted up in security again, and I'm allowed to reemploy my security system as long as I study up on ectoplasm and proper defenses against it."

Valerie felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen.  She practically lifted her Father up in a renewed embrace.  Their laughter bounced off the walls, and the two fell onto the couch together with large grins.  "Daddy that's amazing!  Maybe I could help you with your research on ectoplasm?"  Dad's smile flattened into a thin line so fast you'd say the joy was never there.  She was prepared for that.  "Dad, I'm the best source of information you can get besides the Fentons, and I have a feeling you don't wanna go to them.  Besides, wouldn't it ease your mind to know where I am when I'm not on patrol?"  She didn't point out that he couldn't stop her from going on said patrol anymore since her armor and equipment were now bonded to her will.  That would just spark more tension.

Dad stared at her hard, both thinking it over and trying to get her to crack and give up on the idea.  "You have your schoolwork to focus on, Valerie.  You also have to sleep.  Unlike Phantom, you're a human being with human needs."  That sparked a whole fuck-load of thoughts, hypotheses, and doubts that Valerie slammed shut into her little box of 'things to think about later.'  She didn't back down to her Father's stare, as they both knew she wouldn't.

"I can manage, Daddy.  I study better when I'm doing other things anyway," she reminded him, feeling a pang of hurt when she saw the remembrance and subsequent guilt in her dad's eyes.  "So this will help with improving my grades.  And it'll get my foot in the door of the scientific community.  Help me to see if I wanna be a scientist of any kind before I have to choose a long-term career at the end of senior year."

"Two years from now is quite a ways into the future for you to be thinking about, young lady."  Damon may have felt sorry for forgetting his daughter's study habits - something he had worked hard with her on, back when he had the time - but that wasn't going to influence his decision here.  "You're still a kid, and now that I've got this promotion it's time for you to get back to being a kid.  Maybe make some friends again?"  That stung and Valerie looked up over her dad's head as the memories of how her 'friends' had flung her aside when her Father lost his money.  "You only get to be young once, Val.  Don't waste this time you have."

"I’m still friends with Kwan, Dash, and Star, Daddy.  We just don’t hang out in school so that we can focus on our classes."  Val returned her gaze to her Father's eyes, determination in her tone.  "Right now, my time is best spent figuring out how I'm going to spend my future and protecting my home.  I'd also like to get to spend some of that time with my dad again if that's ok."  She crossed her arms and let out a sigh.  "We don't exactly talk much with our busy schedules."

"Yours is hectic because you make it so."  Dad's lips thinned, even more, his shoulders squared as though he were trying to hold up a load too large for any one man to take on alone.  Valerie's eyes shifted to the window as she thought of taking a quick flight around the block to clear her head.  She almost got up to do just that, but her Father wrapped an arm around her shoulder.  With lips primed, she turned to her Father and arched a brow.  "How about this?  You come three times a week to help me with my research, and in return, you do your best to try and spend time with friends.  Deal?"

Damon held out his hand, staring at Val with cow eyes, and the teen tensed up.  On the one hand, he was trying to persuade her away from ghost hunting.  If she were busy with friends, she would let others like Phantom take over keeping the town safe.  Or at least that's what he thought.  On the other, he was willing to try and let her do something her way, and she'd get to spend more time with her dad.  Val hadn't spent nearly enough time with her Father in the past few months.  Plus, it wasn't as if the Red Huntress - as the public had deemed her - would actually let ghosts take over the hero vigilante business just because she was trying to make friends.  Valerie had priorities, and socializing wasn't one of them anymore.

Val took one more look into her dad's eyes before gripping his hand and shaking it.  "Deal.  Now, let's get this stuff packed up."

* * *

 

Feet padding quietly over concrete, Febe listened for signs of anyone nearby. Hearing and seeing no one, she waited a moment more and slipped inside. With the flick of a switch, weak, tea-stained light coated the stairwell and dust clouded the steps. She picked a path through the fresh rat feces and crumbled plaster, making a note to find the rat poison that she knew was hidden somewhere in the cabinets around this place. Every few steps Febe would stop and listen, praying to hear nothing but buildings creaks and loose paper shifting in the drafts. Empty, these old buildings made a good place to hide out from the unfamiliar and terrifying, but rarely were they vacant. All too often others would come, not to sleep but to use the rooms and anyone in them as a destructive release. While the brooms she left somewhat hidden around the building were good enough for self-defense, she'd much rather avoid a repeat of the time she had been caught by surprise.

Alighting at the top of the stairs, Febe pushed open the second door to the stairwell and flicked on the lights. Setting the stolen food down on the countertop of the kitchenette, the girl began stocking her tiny new residence with food and more plastic plates. It was amazing what Febe managed to get away with, even if it wasn't much. No one suspected the little girl roaming around in poorly cleaned clothes to be a thief.  Febe grabbed a book that she had acquired recently and sat at her little dinner table.  When her hot pocket finished in the microwave that didn't ding anymore, Febe grabbed her food to enjoy dinner and entertainment.  "Magicians, gods, teleportation.  If only real life could be that kind of exciting."  Unfortunately, the life of a homeless teenager was never uneventful.

The hum of the old generator that hadn't been turned off by the city yet continued in the background, bringing the flickering of the lights and the sudden drop in temperature into question.  Febe got up and walked to the doorway to check the thermostat.  A blue and black glowing figure appeared out of the floor so fast Febe couldn't even finish screaming and jumping back before she was embraced by small, cold arms.  "FEBE!  It's been so long, I missed you so so much!  Mama and Papa are too slow so I went ahead of 'em!"  Looking down at the  _ thing _ holding her, Febe saw blue skin, white hair and black clothes.  Green light came from within the creature and its voice, shaking with excitement, held an echo that couldn't have been from the room.  Worst of all was when it looked up at her and she put a name to that familiar voice.  "We looked at the airport first but Mama said it was silly to think that you'd still be around there so I-"

"What are you?!"  Febe shouted, pushing the thing away from her and backing up into her table.  She grabbed the first object within reach - the crisping sleeve for her hot pocket - and threw it at the blue Thing That Was Not Amir.  "Why are you here? Why do you look like my little brother?  What sick game is this?"  The crisping sleeve slipped through the Thing like it wasn't even there, so she grabbed her book and threw that as well.  She dashed to the brooms, ignoring the pained look on the Thing's face.  Those yellow tears weren't the tears of her brother, he was dead.

"But...but Febe, it's me, Amir," he- IT said.  "Don't you remember me?"  It moved closer, feet not touching the ground but gliding above it silently, and only stopped when Febe held up the bristled end of her broom in its face.  "Febe?"

"My brother died a year ago with my Mother and Father in a terrorist attack you-you  _ demon _ !"  She swung the broom at it and the Thing backed away from her, sniffling and crying with  _ his _ voice, with her brother's voice and it wasn't Amir, it couldn't be.  "How  _ dare _ you come mock me with his face and his voice?!"  Febe's vision swam with hot tears, the warmest thing in the room, and she swung again.  The broom was caught by a hand wrapped in white cloth, and warmth flooded back into the room.

"Amir," a voice said.  "I told you, your sister doesn't know that you're you because you're still blue.  We aren't alive anymore, remember?"  Another Thing wearing her Father's face, but in the right warm tones, gently released the broom and pulled Not Amir into a one-armed hug.  "I'm sorry Febe, I know this is a lot to take in but please listen to us."

"You're glowing green too!  You're just like that other thing, you aren't really my Father, you can't be!"  Febe took several steps back and shook her head, brandishing her broom like a shield more than a weapon.  "My family died, they exploded!  I don't know what the hell you are, but stay away from me you  _ filthy pack of lies! _  I want nothing to do with you!"

"Febe... please, calm down."  A warm touch rested on her shoulder, and Febe turned to see her Mother, a frown of concern set in her gaze.  "Yes, we died.  But don't you remember all those texts your Father and I uncovered and studied about the afterlife and the gods?  Remember why we came to Egypt in the first place?"  The echoes of gunshots and the warmth of freshly spilled blood on her skin were all Febe could think of, and in her delirium, it was impossible to tell if her tears were part of her memory or really on her face.  A hand cupped her cheek, palm smoothing over the skin up to her hair back down to the center of her back.  Just like her Mother did when Febe or Amir needed to be comforted.

Febe collapsed against the glowing woman, wrapped her arms around her Mother as tightly as she could.  She cried and she sobbed into her shoulder.  The girl shook with emotions that fought for dominance in her head.  More arms and warmth joined the hug and Febe clung to one feeling in particular.  Finally, she felt safe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot tell you how hard it is for me to get Febe's chapters n shit done, it's mentally draining. I finally told myself to JUST DO IT so I did. Tell me what you think, constructive critisims improve me. Salt fuels me. so just. throw your opinions at me. please


	3. Families, Discussions and Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle is enjoying life at her new home, there is discussion of romance and the future, and a curious kid dies because he wanted to mock LARPers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey again, I had fun pulling all this together last night at 2 in the morning, I finished one fic, time to get back to mah babeh. I'll try to keep Danny lighter toned for this all, but uh. please, submit jokes for me to throw in here in the comments section. I will probably use those jokes at like. basically any time.

Elle took deep breaths and pushed the chill of death away.  A new strength flowed through the girl’s body like a closed circuit.  “Blitz,” she gasped, “this is amazing!  I can’t believe you’ve got this kind of power in you all the time!”  Pushing a stray lock of hair out of her face, Elle lunged forward and jabbed a tree, the heat focused into her hand.  Energy snapped out of her knuckles with a blinding flash and a deafening crack.  The ground shook when the tree hit the ground, and Elle bounced on the balls of her feet, then turned to face her mentor.

Blitz, a tall woman with short red hair and green eyes shifted her gaze from Elle to the tree behind her and a magenta light shone from her palm.  The trunk of the fallen tree rose up and set down on the newly made stump.  “Very nice, you’ve got the combat and science stuff down, huh Faisca?”  She smiled and gave Elle a thumbs up.  “Now, let’s see if you can handle healing damage as well as dealing it, shall we?”

“I’ll get it right this time,” Elle said and turned back to the tree.  She placed a hand on the tree and focused on the warmth that welled up in her chest.  It rushed to her fingertips, sparks of light snapping at the air before Elle could reign it in.  Ignoring the white sparks, Elle concentrated on the tree, on filling every seam and hollow point with her magick.  It flowed into the bark, green light coiling around the wounds that she had inflicted and saturating every crack.   Elle’s mind was unguarded, and the energy inside the tree reached back into her as well.  She could sense what the tree and the plants connected to it felt and needed.  The  _ dampdarksunlight, _ the  _ caressingwaterfood _ and the  _ growth. _  The light flared up around her and reached out to the other trees, sealing up the damage she had caused and bringing fruit to the branches touched by her light.

A white spark erupted between her and the tree bark, severing the connection and flinging the girl back into the dirt.  Elle’s eyes opened wide, lights dancing behind them, and she beamed back at Blitz.  “Blitz, Blitz, look!  I healed the tree so much it grew fruit!”  She got to her feet, ran over and hugged Blitz tight around her stomach.  “That felt  _ awesome _ !”

“And that’s just with healing a tree, Faisca,” Blitz said.  She laughed and spun her little girl around a few times.  “Soon, we’ll move onto animals that need help int he forest.  For now, though, it’s lunchtime.”  Blitz set Elle down and stretched, electric sparks dancing around her body before she zoomed off in a blur across the grass.

On the side of the house was a large structure made of clear glass sheets on a wooden frame, the door wide open.  Inside there were seedling trays on wire racks filled with new shoots, shelves with countless pots and a few raised beds dotted with fragrant herbs that the family had picked out for the season.  Picking tomatoes and cucumbers into their baskets were a blond and a ginger, one muttering quietly while the other tapped out a beat on the long bins.  Blitz grabbed up the blond boy and kissed him on the head, delighting in his switch from whispered threats to the cucumbers to squeals of surprise.  “Caleb, Nigel, it’s lunchtime.  And Caleb, please, stop threatening the vegetables.”

“They deserve to know what’s coming to them ma!”  The blond whined half-heartedly in Blitz’s arms.  “And I know that it’s lunchtime, that’s why we’re picking.  I wanna cut the seeds out first to have more to plant but  _ Nigel _ is in some kinda hurry.”

The other boy rolled his bright orange eyes and crossed his arms, huffing his bangs out of his face.  “I want to get inside and  _ eat _ Caleb.  Not everyone wants to talk to plants about how we’re going to eviscerate them and devour the remains or char with fruit about our day.”  Caleb once set down, scooped up some of the warm wet soil and flung it at Nigel.  Elle snorted, leaning back in the air while Caleb grinned.  “Oh, I see how it is.”  Nigel held out his palm and a wave of heat rippled over the air into Caleb, knocking him back.  “Game on!”

Before the fight could get out of hand and ruin the greenhouse, Blitz lifted both boys under her arms and laughed.  “Ok boys, inside.  Elle, please tell Amanda and Felicia that it’s  lunchtime.”  Elle flashed a thumbs up, backing through the wall of the greenhouse.  “Thank you, Faisca.”  Blitz raced toward the three-story house with the boys’ baskets floating behind her.

Branches groaned in the breeze like barking dogs, maracuja and carambola fruit swaying along with the wind.  Ants and beetles paraded over the tough bark of the trees, trying to gain purchase.  In one of the larger maracuja trees with baskets full of fruit were a pair of laughing and singing girls.  One had hair even darker than Elle’s that fell to her shoulders, pink blouse ruffling in the sweet wind as much as the leaves around them.  Reaching as far as she could, the girl nearly tipped out of the tree, only saved when her sister pulled her back.  The other girl was thin and boney, gray eyes sparkling in the sunlight as she laughed.  “Honestly Amanda,” Elle snorted, “ if Felicia and Caleb didn’t catch you all the time, you’d have broken like, all of your bones by now.”

“Irmazinha, she  _ has _ broken most of her bones,” Felicia giggles, floating next to the branch when Amanda pushed her out of the tree.  “Even Caleb and I can’t catch her every time, and mama believes in learning from experience.”  Her basket full of purple and yellow fruit floated into her hands and Felicia dropped to the ground.  “At least she’s enthusiastic about fruit.”

“You two are jealous of my dexterity and my singing voice,” Amanda said with a roll of her eyes.  “I’ll get down myself, thanks, and I’ll do it with grace.”  She jumped down from the top branch and made her way to the ground with swings and twists that Elle knew weren’t really necessary.  She had almost made it to the ground with the grace of a drop of dew when her foot slipped on the lowest branch and she landed on her butt instead of her feet.  “Fuck, that hurt!”

“C’mon Amy, Elle being here means it’s time for lunch!”  Felicia guided a strong breeze over the basket that Amanda had left atop the highest branch and it fell between the girl’s legs.  “Get up or we’ll be late!”  She picked up her fuller sister before riding the wind toward the house, drawing peals of laughter out of Elle.  Gods was it good to have a family.

* * *

 

On the way to school, Danny met up with Tucker and Sam at the usual spot, and the three of them briefly discussed what had happened to them all last night.  Once they got to lunch, with only an angry mutter from Dash when he and Danny bumped shoulders in the halls, they sat under the tree they had come to start using.  Fifteen feet away from the other tables, with a blanket tied in the branches, was a great spot to eat and talk without worrying about being listened in on.  “My mom and dad haven’t said anything about the Act after the argument last night, so I’m still counting them as for it, and that pisses me the fuck off.”  Sam took an angry bite out of her tofu soy melt, briefly reheated with Danny’s powers.  “I mean, grandma made a good point, even if it’s a sad thing to think about.  This place is covered in enough ectoplasm, I bet someone’s ghost will form right then and there after they die.  What about grandma’s ghost?  What about when mom and dad die, do they think they won’t want their rights back then?”

“I’m with you there, Sam.  It doesn’t make sense to take away people’s rights after they die if we already have a method of punishing offenders.”  Tucker glared at the flowers trying to reach the sun in the steadily cooling autumn breeze.  “The GIW are disgusting with their prejudice, and it’s sick that anyone in the government is even thinking of backing this.”

“I feel like the timing is pretty damn coincidental,” Danny finally spoke up from his burger and fries from Nasty Burger.  Flight and duplication were a fantastic combo for getting out of school lunches.  “The new halfas are going to be popping up soon, and now they go to legislation for authorization of carrying away anyone that sets off an ectodetector?”

“They’ll probably even buy it if an EMF detector goes off,” Tuck grumbled around his burger meat.  “I’m tempted to set up a test just to see if they really do take that kind of bait.”

“Too dangerous for now, we don’t know if they’ll react with force lethal to humans as well as ghosts with something like that.”  Sam rolled her eyes and took a sip of her protein shake.  “Knowing them, they’ll toss a frag loaded with ectoplasm.”

“True,” the geek conceded, swallowing around his burger before turning to his best friend.  “So, now that we covered that the GIW are scum and Technus’ virus is swept off of the traffic systems-”

“Very nice work getting that done in only one night by the way,” Sam interrupted, stealing a french fry from Danny and grinning when he growled at her.

“Thank you - I think we should get to the biggest thing here.  Clockwork told you that more halfas are gonna be popping up around the world?  Like, the whole planet not just the US?”  Danny nodded and handed Tucker the object Clockwork had given him as a piece of help.  It was a tablet with blue casing, only a few buttons on the side, and a CW on the back.  “Have you turned this on yet?”

“And ruin the surprise of what’s on it when I can have you do that?”  Danny slapped away Sam’s hand from his fries, pointedly munching on the one she had been reaching for.  “When I looked into their mirrors, I saw a few things, but they were reflecting the future too quickly for me to keep track of.”  He decided that the bit about Vlad could wait until later.

Tucker held the power button for a few seconds and rolled his eyes as Clockwork’s emblem appeared on the screen before it showed the Ghost Zone as a background and a handful of apps.  “Ok, this should be fun to figure out.  A folder labeled Halfas and a map at the top.  What secrets could these possibly hold?”  A sip of his soda and Tucker pulled up the folder first, starting at the top and raising a brow at the description of Danny.  “‘Cheeky brat with a core of gold, this one will do what he can to keep the innocent safe.’  That’s a wonderful summary sentence of you, Danny, I don’t think I could have said it better myself.”

“And here I figured he was endearing in some way.”  Sam shrugged, crumpling up the wrapper for her melt and stuffing it in her pocket.  “Guess he’ll find one someday.”

“Vlad’s summary is locked, but that’s just a challenge waiting for my laptop at home.”  Tucker felt a bit of warm pulsate from his ring, but silenced the whispers of power resonating within the scarab jewel.  “Danielle’s picture is set to the name Elle Relámpago.  I think she’s been adopted or something.”  Tucker’s eyes flew over the text on the screen, and a brow rose slowly as he read.  “Looks like Elle is even more of a magical girl than you Danny, she’s managed to surpass the original.”

Danny choked on his soda for a moment and glared at his best friend once he could breathe again.  “I am not a magical girl, Tuck.  Just cause I have a hazmat suit and a flashy transformation doesn’t make me an anime character.”  He took another sip of his soda and frowned when he got nothing but plastic.  He opened the cup and stared inside of it, concentrating on the few drops of soda around the walls of the drink.  “I bet I can make this last a tiny bit longer.”

“First off, there’s a website dedicated to posting images of your ass captured by the many hormonal teenagers across Amity Park because you wear a skin-tight outfit that shows off every little detail under the fabric. You have a catchphrase you practically scream to the heavens before battle, transform in the flashiest, most 90s method I can think of, and you’re half dead.”  Tucker counted off the points on his fingers with a widening grin.

“Face it, Danny, you’re a white haired anime boy.  You died at the beginning of the anime.”  Sam laughed when the pouting teen threw his cup at her.  “It’s not my fault you refuse to change your outfit in ghost form.  It’d probably make it harder for that website to stay up.”

“Whatever.  So, what can you tell us about any new halfas that might be popping up, Tuck?”  Danny shoved both of his friends before settling back on his palms.  “If Clockwork gave us info on this, it’s either gonna update when one of them gets caught in their respective portal, or show us a list of pictures that’ll only make sense when we see their inverse in a fight or on the news or something like that.”

“Hoping for the first one, cause there’s only you, Elle and Vlad on this list.”  Tucker exited the list and opened up the map.  There were three spots on the map marked with flashing dots.  One pink, one orange, one blue.  “So, Elle’s somewhere in South America, Vlad is back in Wisconsin - a business deal between Dalv Co and the Caesar Triumvirate - and we know where Danny is.”  The geek looked up and raised a brow at the ginger he caught staring at the back of his best friend’s head.  “Danny, your stalker, and latest ‘popular crowd’ crush is staring holes into the back of your head.  Please, flirt him away.”

A frown settled on the hunter’s face, and he stuck his tongue out at Tucker.  “I do not have a crush on Wes.  I just find it impressive that he figured me out and that a human can jump that high for a game.”  He glared at Tucker when the older teen opened his mouth.  “I can freeze your underwear without being seen, you know.”

“Danny, seriously,” Sam placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder and gave him a pitying look.  “We may have judged you a bit for your little crush on Dash-”

“Which I never had.”

“And for trying to date Valerie when she’s trying to eliminate you-”

“Neither of you apologized for ruining my relationship with her, by the way, I’m still waiting for an apology there.”

“But we won’t judge you for liking Wes.  I for one just think you should ease him into the fact that you’re an anime protagonist and something dramatic is going to happen around you every five minutes.”  Sam plowed through Danny’s interruptions, maintaining a mask of innocent concern up until her red-faced friend got up and strode toward his stalker.  Once he was gone, Sam started laughing and shook her head.  “Wow, that was way too fun.”

“You know, he might be right,” Tucker mused with a hum, stealing one of Danny’s fries while the raven-haired boy was pretending to flirt with a flustered Wes Weston, who slinked off after looking everywhere but Danny.  “We didn’t have to tell him that Technus was setting him up with Val the way we did, he might’ve actually listened and they could be together.”

“She was a bitch to us before she lost all her stuff and she was bitchy to us when she was dating Danny, Tuck.”  Sam poked the taller in the chest before letting a grin creep onto her face.  “Besides, we both know you want Danny all to yourself.  You can call me and him lovebirds all you want, but I know a lovesick puppy when I see one.”

“Your grammar is off sometimes, you know that?”  Tucker spun the globe on the Gearpad - his own internal dubbing to be brought up later - and hummed at the clocks covering certain countries.  “It’s ‘he and I’ not ‘me and him.'  Also, I think I found something.”  Tucker looked up and flashed his best buddy a grin.  “Nice work solidifying the rumor that you and Wes are pinning each other and he just doesn’t know how to express his feelings.  There’s going to be a halfa in Egypt, one in Brazil, and one in China at least, as well as at least one in the US.”

“It’s entirely his fault that people think that he and I are dating, I can take no blame for that.  Also, how do you know?”  He leaned over Tucker’s shoulder and nodded as he took in the clocks.  “Those are counting down, which means that we can know when the new halfas are coming in and a generalized where.”  He laid back on the blanket and stared up at the leaves above their heads, some already changing colors as the sunlight struggled to get through.  “It’s up to us to pinpoint the locations, track them down, and either prevent their hybridizations or help them transition from human to half ghost.”

“Danny, do you have a passport?”  Sam rested her boots on his lap, and the hunter raised a brow at the goth.  “Because if not, you’ll need to get one soon.  We can’t go around the world without those, ya know.”

“That didn’t stop you and Tucker when Vortex attacked.”  Danny pointed out with a raised brow.  “The real barrier here is language.  If we can’t communicate with the new halfas, how are we supposed to keep them safe?”  Danny pointed at Tucker with his foot.  “Do you happen to know Chinese?”

“I do in fact speak Mandarin, yes, and I can program up a translator program for the Fenton Phones that actually catches things like tone and dialect-specific wordings.  Things that Google translate has problems with.”  He paused and hummed.  “Bet I can make some money off of that while I’m helping to save the world.”

“I can handle us getting there and back legally and unsuspiciously.”  Sam grinned when eyes fell on her.  “Remember that time I gave you, your parents and even Jazz a little group project to work on?”

“We’ve yet to finish spending the money you paid us with,” Danny nodded, a grin spreading across his features.  “Thinkin of using the jet?”

“With solar panels and an ectoconverter for power instead of fossil fuels?  Hell yeah, I am.”  Sam high-fived her friends and stood with a stretch.  “Now that we’ve got that covered, we need a plan of action.”

“We can’t do much until the new halfas have their accidents, so I vote we play some videogames tonight so that I can finally crush you.”  Tucker turned off the tablet and slid it into one of his many pockets.  “I have to win eventually, and tonight will be the night.”

“Maybe some other time, Tuck.”  Danny tried for the most apologetic grin he could give his brother, sitting up slowly.  “We need to find a place for the halfas to live, and we both know that you can get more headway on your projects in the labs of the Far Frozen than at home.”

“So while you’re searching the icy void of the netherworld for a safe haven, Tuck and I will be doing fuck knows what in the Far Frozen?”  Sam arched a brow at her friend, only relenting after he shrunk into his shirt like a turtle.  “Alright.  I could use the quiet while I work on my counter to the Anti-Ecto-Act.”

“Also, Jazz will need to be informed of our little trip so that we don’t leave Amity hangin.”  Tucker sent the redhead a text and rose to his feet as well, gathering up the blanket while Danny collected the trash.  The dark-skinned geek climbed the tree and tied the quilt to the same branch as before, dropping down with a light grunt.  “Patrol for thirty minutes, pack, then to the Zone we go.”

“For now, though, we gotta deal with a fate worse than death.”  Danny winced slightly as the loud school bell rang practically in his ears.  “Back to class with us.”

* * *

 

“It’s a waste of time, a waste of money, and reveals that we have a whole lot of crazy people wasting taxpayer dollars on toys meant to deal with a threat about as real as a millennial's self-worth.”  A freckled face twisted with annoyance, a higher baritone filling the room with irritation born of a waste of time and breath.  “Why should citizens lose their rights after death?  Why should we squander the brainpower of our legislators on deciding whether or not those who’ve passed into the void of nonexistence we call death get to be counted as people?  Why are we funding an entire agency that spreads across the whole fucking country just to hunt down ghosts?  Ghosts aren’t real, and therefore, their rights don’t matter.”

“Your whole argument is based around Ghosts not existing, Hugh, but there’s proof that can be found in the simplest of google searches that they do.”  Frankie, a guy with tan skin and blond dreads, glared at his overtly bored opponent.  “The town of Amity Park is an excellent example of a hotspot of spectral activity!  The ghosts there, as well as other ghosts across the country,  are a danger to those of us still living and breathing!  We need the Guys in White to deal with them like the monsters they are, but simpletons easily lead astray by these apparitional abominations keep getting in the way.”  Frankie leaned forward to make sure that Hugh was hearing him.  “How do you propose we deal with a threat when civilians act like mindless NPCs in a karmic system videogame?”

Hugh slowly raised an eyebrow at the blond across from him.  “The Guys in White?  That’s what they’re called?”  He let out a quick laugh and covered his eyes with a grin.  “I’m surprised Sonnenfeld and Solomon haven’t sued them into submission for ripping off the Men in Black theme.”  Straightening up, Hugh laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them.  “Let’s pretend for one moment that I believe ghosts exist, shall we Frankie?”  The other blond relaxed back into his seat, easing Hugh’s mounting headache just a tad.  “If there are ghosts, spirits of the dead, coming to our world, then why should we revoke their rights?  I highly doubt that the only ghosts who have come to the earth are vengeful poltergeists hoping to take over the planet or kill that one guy who owes them money, or something like that.  What about the people trying to solve their murders?  What about the people trying to give advice to their loved ones?  What about the people who can’t pass on only because there was that one little thing that they never got to do in life, but they can do now because they’re not held back by such needs as eating, drinking, sleeping, etcetera?”

“The only ghosts ever recorded-”

“Don’t interrupt me, Frankie, it’s against the rules of the debate club.”  Hugh leveled an icy glare at his clubmate and was satisfied after a few moments of silence.  “Now, I only briefly read the bill for this ‘Anit-Ecto Act’ but it basically sums up as ‘no ghost is allowed to be on earth, and if they are caught, they shall be melted into goo after undergoing various experiments to contribute to better ghost tracking and more efficient anti-ghost weapons.’  That’s… frankly, it’s disgusting.  It steps all over the inalienable rights laid out in the constitution and shows an insane amount of disrespect for the deceased.  They should be treated as fairly as any other citizen.”

“The ghosts don’t belong in this dimension, Hugh,” The taller, freckle-faced boy snorted and rolled his eyes at that, but didn’t stop his opponent.  “The only ghosts ever recorded are destructive creatures showing only malice towards the living.  Three vegan protesters at a highschool crushed under two tons of raw meat; countless people possessed and used to fight in the skies of a city; bank robberies all over the US that went unexplained until the guy controlling the ghosts was caught.  Hell, I’m pretty damn sure a ghost psychiatrist wandering the country goes from school to school and depresses everyone there until someone kills themself!”  Frankie slammed a fist down on his desk, eliciting a chorus of sighs from the bystanders over his dramatics.  “These undead creatures are an affront to nature and a danger to us all!  Why should they have the right to anything, when all they do is cause trouble?”

“Question, unrelated to the subject matter: are you aware that expressing a larger vocabulary does not constitute greater intelligence?  Another question that is relevant to this asinine topic.”  Hugh leaned back, brushing strands of dark blond hair out of his face.  “If your grandma’s ghost came back to give you hugs, kisses, love and the kind of advice that only grandmas give, would that mean that she’s committed some horrible act punishable by Death: the Sequel?”  A fuming Frankie opened his mouth, and Hugh gave him a look that could freeze lava and melt the polar caps.  “Interrupt me, and I will refer to you as either MatPat or a Ronald McDonald cartoon reject.  This club has rules about interruptions, and it is still my turn.”  Frankie’s mouth clamped firmly shut, and Hugh scoffed at him.  “Now, if say, my dog, were to come back all misty, glowing and barking as though he’s in a pool, I’d welcome that with open arms and hug the hell out of him.  I’d love to hear the stories of my great great grandfather if he was able to come back to tell them.  If ghosts were real, and in our world, they’d act the same as regular people, and deserve the same rights as they had in life.”

“And what about the ghosts of serial killers, Nazis, murderers, rapists, terrorists, KKK members?  What if the ghost of Hitler came back and tried to finish what he started, Hugh?  Do they deserve the same rights?  If they’ll act the same as they did in life, then what kind of horrors would those kinds of people commit without the limitations of life?”

“They get imprisoned and eventually melted into ectoplasm for the scientists to examine.”  A beat of silence and Hugh rested his head on his fist.  “If they’re already horrible people, say if Hitler’s ghost came back to try and start up another war, then yes that ghost should be gotten rid of as they had their chance and fucked it up a second time.  A murderer was given a chance to make amends with both their victim and the victim’s family?  Either they make those amends, or they try to kill again.  If they kill again, get rid of them, and if not then don’t.”  Hugh picked up a bottle of water and took a sip.  “The innocent go free to enjoy their afterlives, so long as they don’t step on the rights of the living and each other, and criminals get to stop existing.  It’s as simple as that, Frankie.  Fairness, as anyone with empathy and a sense of logic, can come up with in such a situation.”

The buzzer that the vice president had set went off, and Hugh grinned over at his opponent.  “And it looks like that’s all the time we have for this debate.  As usual, our lovely president Guttermuth has swept the floor with his opponent.”  The redhead grinned and patted the back of his taller friend.  “Glad to see Hugh participating in the ‘current events’ debate for once.”

“‘What can I say?  The real world is depressing to argue over.  Also,” Hugh smushed the cheeks of his best friend together and shook his head.  “Don’t say that I swept the floor with him when he made good enough arguments against me.  I’m not always right and can make mistakes, plus I think the Act is a waste of time because ghosts don’t exist, not because I care about their rights.”  He released the other boy’s face and chuckled as he grabbed his notebook and backpack.  "If you wanna see me sweep the floor with Frankie, Jakey, then send me a link to his blog and watch me tear his conspiracies about Aliens and werewolves apart.”

* * *

 

After school, the trio met up at Danny's house. The half ghost hero set loose a duplicate - he was proud to say that he could sustain at least two of them while in human form - to lead his parents out of the house. Now they were being briefed by Jazz, who was worried that they would have forgotten something in their 'GhostZone Exploration' kits. "Fenton E70 bazookas?"

"We only need one of those, Jazz," Sam sighed and nodded, pulling out a miniaturized weapon from her bag.

Ignoring the comment, the redhead continued down her checklist, thankful that her father had made the Crammer.  It made packing weapons so much easier. "Specter Deflectors programmed to ignore Danny's ectosignature?" Tucker called out an affirmative. "Homework and dinner in case you don't get back in time for it?"

"Considering the last time that we went in without our homework?" Danny chuckled, ignoring the glare Tucker shot him. "Check and check."

"We still made it in time to do our homework," the technogeek pointed out sourly. "We were just tired and inaccurate."

"Portable ghost shield generators?" Jazz pointedly ignored the statement about their homework, though her eye twitched a bit. She knew that any prodding would be met with a wall of 'we can handle it, Jazz' so she'd take what peace of mind she could get. "In case you need to deal with a swarm away from the Speeder."

"We have it all, Jazz." Danny let out a sigh and put a hand on his sister's shoulder, glad she didn't flinch from the chill anymore. "We'll be safe. We've got Tucker's know how, Sam's badassery and my powers, along with enough Fenton Tech to lay siege to the Zone." A shiver went up everyone's spines at the thought. A war on the dead would not go well for either side.

Jazz gripped her clipboard, letting the coarseness of the wood ground her and stall extra nervous thoughts that popped up from the words 'we got this.' "Did you remember the Crammer?" A swear from the geek rifling through the drawers for the shrink ray confirmed she was right and earned a grin and groan. "That's what I thought. Be careful, all of you. I'll see you when you get back."

After Sam did a quick rundown of her own on all the shrunken weapons, the trio hopped into the Specter Speeder and closed the hatch. The doors to the portal opened and the hover vehicle rose off of the ground with a soft hum. A wave from Danny and they were through the event horizon that had changed all of their lives.

In consideration of the incident of the Infimap, Danny had made sure to put down a better map of the Ghost Zone afterward, the equipment in the Speeder making that easier to do, especially with the help of Jazz. Using a marking distance of about five hundred meters, they had sectioned out the parts of the Zone closest to the Fenton Portal, as well as routes to the allied lairs and islands that team Phantom frequented.

Once the coordinates to the Far Frozen were keyed into the autopilot, the trio sat on the floor and spread out their homework for the day.  Except Tucker, who began tapping out characters on his screen faster than either of his friends were aware human fingers could move.  “So Danny,” the geek prodded as he spotted the half ghost setting down his pencil.  “I got a question for you.  Why haven’t your parents marketed their hover technology?”  The other boy raised a brow at him, and Tucker groaned.  “Are you aware that hover technology isn’t exactly commonplace and your parents have patented the current design for your Gravity Inverters ™ along with all the previous designs?”

“Mom and Dad mostly just… ya know, invent and sell household items that work better than other brands,” Danny said, shrugging in confusion.  “I mean, I guess I could talk to them about marketing the Inverters after we finish the solar panel and ectoconverter modifications to the jet that Sam asked us to mod, but is it really that big of a deal?”

“Maybe not to the people of Amity Park who see ghosts all the time and have slowly begun to establish protocols for when a ghost attack happens, no.”  Sam said.  “But, to the outside world it’d be a pretty big deal. You guys could make quite a bit of money off of it, fund more research and give you a bigger pocket to work with when dealing with the other half ghosts.”

“I can do the marketing so long as I get a reasonable percentage of the income from the product,” Tucker offered, grinning when Sam clipped his shoulder.  “What?  It’s a valid point to get a little compensation for doing something that the Fentons don’t do very well on their own.”

“It’s true,” Danny admitted.  “Mom and Dad are a great science team, Jazz is borderline psychic and I understand flight better than anyone, but none of us are exactly business people.  I’ll bring it up to mom and dad and get back to you on it, now what answer did you get for number 4?”

 

“I need to find someplace that’d suit me and the other half ghosts for training once they go through their accidents and the Infimap is the only reliable way to find the right place.  I promise, as soon as I’m done I will come immediately back Frostbite.”  Danny gave the large yeti his best puppy eyes.  “Please?”

Frostbite, an understanding spirit on even a bad day, stared down at the Great One and fought back a chuckle.  The sight brought back memories that he didn’t have time to think on at the moment.  Holding out his flesh hand, Frostbite raised a brow.  “Do you swear to return the Infimap, Great One?”

Danny took the large claw and shook it firmly, dropping the moe eyes for a more serious expression.  “I swear it, Frostbite, on my core.”  There was a tingle, a chill more biting than the one surrounding him, and Danny shivered.  Blue and green light swirled around their joined hands and Frostbite nodded to him, handing Danny the map.  “Thank you.  Now, Infimap, I need to go to a place that’ll be safe to train new half ghosts in.”  The map pulled on Danny and he was gone.

Tucker and Sam wondered off to their own things, one with a bag full of tools and the other with journal in hand.  Once they were out of earshot, Frostbite chuckled to himself.  “Even in your second life, young prince, you’re still you.  Makes me wonder how you haven’t told him more about the subject yet, Clockwork.”

* * *

 

The bell rang, and Hugh took his time collecting his things in the room.  Once the rush of students eager to get the fuck out of school were out the door, he left himself with a wave to the teacher.  The teen found his bike quickly enough and noted that his best friend’s was already gone.  “Jake, you bastard, you’re supposed to wait for me to get here before you rocket off into the horizon.”  Letting out a sigh, Hugh made his way toward Jake’s house.  “When I get there, he better not have started the movie marathon without me.  Iron Man, here I come.”

As Hugh tore down the asphalt that was soon surrounded by grass on either side, he glanced around himself and took in the familiar sight of trees, a few flowers here and there, and that one dog that ran around with a collar on it’s neck but always happened to be there when Hugh and Jake passed.  He stopped and turned his head back to the trees when he saw lines of green tape, and snorted.  “Well now, this should be interesting.  What LARPers think that the forest is theirs?”  Wheeling over, Hugh parked his bike at the edge of the trees and hummed.  “I should get a picture for Jake, rub it into his face that he never sees anything around him unless I point it out.”

A quick check on the battery level of his phone and Hugh was hiking as quietly as he could into the woods.  A strange smell steadily grew stronger the deeper into the trees he went, bringing with it a sense of confusion.  “What the hell are they doing, tossing stink bombs at each other for fireballs?”  When he saw a glint of metal through the bushes, Hugh peeked his head over them and took a sharp breath before ducking down as low as possible.  High pitch whining could be heard steadily picking up as he pushed aside a few leaves and gazed upon a gathering of men and women in white business suits and dark sunglasses roaming around what looked like a large metallic tent, maybe a few meters tall and easily big enough to fit all the people he could see.

They were waving around these chrome and green devices that reminded Hugh of those metal detector wands at the airport, whirring and whining every few seconds as they pointed them in generally the same direction.  When Hugh raised his phone up to silently snap a picture, he realized that the direction they were getting the most noise from was his.  Backing away quietly now that he had his evidence that some weird shit was going on in the woods of DC, the teen prayed that none of them saw him.  Something underneath his foot gave under his weight, and the sound of a twig snap had Hugh freezing up.  The click of a round being loaded into the gun chamber echoed in his ears along with the beating of his heart, and Hugh turned slowly to see a woman aiming a pistol at his head.  “What are you doing here?  Didn’t you see the tape?  This is a restricted area.”

Instead of pointing out that any official government agency would use yellow police tape to cordon off an area, Hugh turned and ran.  Before he got even ten steps away, another woman appeared in front of him, what looked like a sci-fi gun aimed at him, and he froze in his tracks.  “Ok, so, I’m like, a highschool student, and I thought that LARPers would be here, and what is that noise?”  The whining of their metal detector things was getting almost unbearably loud, and the woman took a step closer to him.  That was when pain flared up in his, well, everything.

Hugh saw through closed eyelids the life of an acorn falling from a tree branch and rising up to become a new tree.  He watched as forests fell and burned and the clouds shifted, and the sky churned with anger.  Flashes of blue replacing the gold of the sun as the light of the world once more, and metal structures rising to meet the challenge of the gods.  He saw the wonders of medicine grow and evolve and wipe out diseases that weren’t epidemic causing cataclysms, and limit those as well.  He saw the countries of the earth rise, fall, and rise once more, fewer and more united each time.  Visitors broke through the clouds with the sun, and the earth prospered once more.  He heard the prayers of men women and children to their respective gods as they went through problems dire and domestic and every point in between, heard the screams of the dying and the newly born, confessions of love and declarations of hatred.  The futures of the world put themselves on display and scene after scene filled his vision, his hearing, his taste and smell, every fiber of his being shook with recognition of that which he would never possibly live to see.  With every sensation and scene, Hugh felt his mind expand further and further until he was sure that he would explode.

The future of the Earth and her children slowly faded into darkness, and the burning sensation was soothed by hands cooler than the AC and ice cream of his grandfather’s house.  The face of his father appeared in front of him, though a bit paler and with hair that was hard to distinguish from the blackness behind him.  ‘ _ You will not die just yet, little Hughbert.  Rest, for now, you have quite the journey ahead of you. _ ’  The man who obviously wasn’t his father faded away with those whispered words, and Hugh fell into the deepest sleep he’s ever experienced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have an issue where I kill characters upon introducing them, this is a bit of a problem that i must solve. oh well. What think ye all of the chapter? tell me in the comments below and if you found any problems, tell me there as well.
> 
> I feel Elle deserves a family, so I gave her one. Hugh gets a different death scene but just as dramatic as before.


	4. Danny the Explorer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The infimap is a very useful tool. Danny finds what he's looking for, and gets a little history lesson as well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh shit, is the author being hit with a wave of creativity? yes? holy shit! So, we've got Danny finding and exploring a fun place where all the half ghosts are going to be brought to. Clockwork makes an appearance (wow they are really active lately aren't they) and Danny is beloved by the god of inanimate objects.

Danny found the sensation of being dragged along by the infimap exhilarating the first time he had done it, but this time was different. Almost as if the map's mindset had changed. When he noticed the trip was slowing down, he looked around to see he was nowhere near… anything. It was literally the middle of nowhere Only a purple island floated in the distance that he was being pulled towards. After a moment, he realized it was less an island and more of a continent.

He sailed over a jungle of purple-leafed trees the smallest reaching over three stories, bright blue bushes and red grass where he could see between the giant leaves, and the ruins of what looked to be an ancient city or three, all about as large as Skulker's island. The buildings were made of stone, metal, wood, and crystals. Rivers cut through the land and fell over the edges of the continent, or flowed along the channels to other rivers, going around the land mass like blood vessels. Looking forward the halfa saw tall black mountains with violet clouds surrounding their peaks, various colors of flora. A flock of birds, huge compared to what he normally saw on earth, soared through the sky like they owned the land - if so Danny wondered where the map was leading him since any place inhabited by potentially hostile ghosts would be unsafe for new halfas.

When he looked again, he could see animals roaming around everywhere. The sound of monkeys howling filled the air every few minutes. Snakes and sloths covered the trees he was flying through, jaguars and Panthers ran after antelope and other animals Danny couldn't identify even after watching that documentary Sam had him watch.

Finally, Danny noticed a large drop in speed when he was brought over the largest of the cities yet. Everything was ivory wood or ebony stone, metal and crystals twisted in as though all grown at the same time naturally, into the shapes of buildings with windows everywhere, most likely since all of the inhabitants could fly. There were buildings with architecture from nearly every culture in the human world and several other things about it all he had never seen before. The city had gates at twelve points of the huge wall encircling it, though one gate had its doors ripped completely off, and he assumed the others were in similar states of disrepair.

In the center of the ancient metropolis was a domed building that looked older than he could even begin to guess. More than half of the building was in ruins, the intact half leading up to a castle. Castle was the simplest way that Danny could put it. A Greek acropolis stood tall at once side, one section of the building made from stone so dark green he assumed it was black at first glance roofed with silver ingots, hammered bronze doors big enough to fly a helicarrier into easily, a palace-like structure that Danny recognized as Egyptian in style from the time Tucker had been possessed by the staff of his ancestor and so many more styles of ancient architectural styles blended with ages thereafter.

The map pulled him down to massive front doors of the castle fit for gods and curled itself up as soon as his boot touched the golden pavement. At first, the young halfa stood there in awe at the marvel of construction and monument to whoever had once lived there before noticing the less than glamorous damage. It was still awe-inspiring in its diversity and grandness, but there were obvious signs of its fall as well. There were cracks along the walls, pieces of stone and marble and metal that were missing or scattered about the lawn - which stretched out for around three hundred meters if the young scientist were to guess - and the gates of the very building itself were in pieces on the inside.

"Okay," Danny muttered to himself as he floated forward, not wanting to set off any traps that might be on the ground. "I'm in the dead husk of an ancient city of spirits from what could be ten or twelve thousand years ago, if not more, in the middle of nowhere so far from my neck of the Ghost Zone that I wouldn't be able to find it without the infimap. This probably counts as safe as far as being hidden counts."

* * *

The castle felt even larger on the inside than it had on the outside. The floor was nothing but mosaic after mosaic of events and ghosts that Danny could only wonder about, though after the first few hundred hallways and intersecting rooms, the halfa found a pattern to everything. And so, he followed along the path of destruction. The whole of the place was somewhat intact but also decaying from the millennia it must have stood uninhabited, yet there was a clear difference between the natural wearing of Time and the signs of a battle. If he looked closely at the walls, Danny saw some dark green spots that didn't match the designs. Upon realizing what those splatters most likely were, he stopped looking at the walls.

The further in he went, the more precise the signs of battle were. Lines cut deep into the stone, sand littered around the halls, puddles and even still frozen ice around the edges of doorways, scorch marks that never faded. The battle had to have lasted hours, if not days with how large the place was. As Danny flew in faster, following some unidentifiable tug on his core, the walls were less stable, the air felt thicker and the ceiling even had holes in it. A sickly sweet scent, like lemon scented cleaning products but stronger, filled the air mixed dust.

It took him half an hour from the point at which entire rooms could be seen through collapsed walls, filled with debris, but eventually, Danny got to where the feeling in his core was strongest. A soft humming sound emanated from the center of the room with no visible source. Floating up to the actual center of the huge room, large enough to hold his, Sam and Tucker's houses with yards included, the halfa saw the room had to have been the last stand.

Bones, pools of ectoplasm, scorch marks, claw marks, ice, sand, cracked and crushed pillars and columns, dead plants, broken weapons, a statue with a wild, frightened look on their face, body contorted in a way no sculptor would have carved, likely a spirit turned to stone. This room had seen the last fight of the country or at least the biggest. Danny was glad he didn't have to see that fight. Upon closer inspection, he saw one thing that hadn't been touched.

Carved into the floor in the middle of the room was a ring of symbols, untouched. There were six total, outlined with a perfect circle and separated into different colored sections of stone. Above the electric blue gear symbol floated a familiar face, and Danny descended to Clockwork's level silently. Neither spoke for a while, as Danny took in all the information around him and tried to figure out what could have caused all of this.

"Two hundred thousand years," the Timekeeper finally spoke, and the half-ghost turned all of his attention to them. "After all of this time, Boreus' ice still hasn't melted. He did say that he could make sculptures that would outlast him…" they trailed off and gestured to the ice Danny had noticed but said no more.

After another thirty seconds, Danny could take the silence no more and gestured at the room in general. "What is all of this? What happened here? Where am I? What does this have to do with halfas?" Those and a million other questions were racing through his head, but Clockwork offered him a cookie, and he knew that the spirit was going to only answer the questions they wanted to.

"In order, this is the palace of the Nether King, a war, the sovereign nation of Alomora, and I'll get to that at the end." They waited for Danny to take a bite, a small smile on their face, and waved a hand, transporting them above the ginormous palace. "This continent you have been guided to was once the capital of the world, all of us unified as one people.  Spirits and Ghosts alike lived side by side with each other and spirits often guided ghosts in realizing their life's purpose." They turned to the halfa with a raised brow, blue face full of wrinkles. "Do you know the difference between a Spirit and a Ghost, Daniel?" Danny shook his head in confusion.

"Aren't those the same thing? Spirit, ghoul, specter, ghost, apparition, poltergeist. Different words for the same entity?" That's what his parents had always told him, and the ghosts that he had encountered had never said anything about there being a difference. His brows furrowed in concentration as he tried to remember any instance where spirit and ghost were terms used as differing terms. "Most ghosts I meet call this dimension the Ghost Zone, but Pandora, you and Frostbite have all called it the Spirit World or the Netherworld. Why?"

"The long and short of it," Clockwork said, gesturing to the continent around them. "Is that a spirit was born in this world, this dimension, without any pre-existence beyond their preincarnations." Danny opened his mouth to ask about reincarnation but opted for taking another bite when Clockwork held a finger to their lips. "A ghost, regardless of what spacial dimension or planet they came from, is a being that died traumatically and was given a second chance at life by the Spirit Mother. Some cannot remember their past lives and deaths, like Skulker who was blown to bits by the landmine of his greatest rival." The image of a man with the same build as Skulker flashed through Danny's head, the following image making him regret the cookies in his mouth. "Others cannot forget, no matter how hard they try.

"The relevance it has to the situation at hand, Daniel... you tell me," they said, and Danny rolled his eyes at the elder spirit.

"What I'm getting here is that halfas are half spirit instead of half ghost?"  Clockwork nodded and Danny sat on the air with his legs crossed.  "Since this place was decimated by war all those years ago, that means that no one would come here looking for a halfa.  Or at all.  Which makes it the safest place to bring everyone for some X-men style training."

"Very good, Daniel.  But how are you going to get them here?"  Clockwork teleported them back to where they had started and leaned on their staff.  "After the war with Pariah, this original palace drifted off practically toward the core of the world.  You wouldn't have exactly made it here quickly had you been working with your standard flight speed."

Danny huffed and crossed his arms, flipping upside down in the air.  They were right, as usual, but Danny wasn't going to let that stop him.  After several minutes of quietly thinking it over and eating another cookie, Danny flipped right side up again.  "Clockwork, spirits, and ghosts can teleport, right?  Like warp through space?  I remember seeing Vlad do it."  Clockwork nodded and Danny grinned.  "I have a feeling that with all this magickal technology that's bound to be in here, there's something around that'd let me teleport back here right?"

"Search the halls, Daniel, you shall find the answers in exploration." They held up their staff and cobalt light covered the artifact. "I’ll help you out a bit.  This old palace hasn’t had proper maintenance in millennia.  It could stand to be a couple thousand or so years younger.  _ Ex tempore. Redde. _ " Those last words echoed with power and as the end of the staff met the ground, blue light burst outwards, sweeping over the whole room and out through the palace. When Danny opened his eyes, the room was different.

The damage from the ancient battle had been erased, the only sign that it had been there at all the ice that had stood for millennia, apparently untouched by Clockwork's power. The floor and walls were smooth, seats lined the circle of symbols and a table stood between them. The walls were six rich colors that blended seemingly at random all throughout, forming captivating patterns. Above the doors that lead out of the central room were symbols different from the ones on the ground, and Danny noted a quill symbol that held a fading blue glow. "Well, that's a clue if I've ever seen one.  Always one for a dramatic exit, huh Clockwork?”  Danny floated down the hall in search of knowledge.

* * *

 

What Danny found was actually something he expected, to a point. He had been forced to split into at least four of himself to find the right room, thanks to the vastness of the halls.  Based on what he saw, Danny assumed that all of those paths lead to the same place.  He was in the section of the palace that pandered to spirits of knowledge and wisdom all of that. A library was something he expected. The size of the library, however, was a bit of a shock.

Along each wall and in perfectly lined up columns stood row after row of shelves. In the front, there were scrolls, but as the rows progressed further back, books could be found. Each record had its own aura, each a different color that lit up the room in lieu of an actual light source on the ceiling, though one did happen to be there. The carpet of the floor was a muted violet that went well with the navy walls of the chamber. After a few meters up, guard rails lined the edge of another floor.  As far as Danny could tell, the place didn’t  _ have _ a ceiling and that was a force field keeping birds out of the library.

"How did anyone keep from getting lost in here?" As he asked, Danny rose above the shelves on the first floor and found himself reminded of when he was first taken to a library. The shelves there seemed to stretch on forever, and Jazz had to stick with him or he'd have gotten lost. Here, there were at least five levels above him that he could make out individually.  On that forcefield keeping the birds out was the mark of a quill, a brush, and a pen forming a triangle. It was hard to even see the walls, looking in any direction really, and that was after Danny focused only on his vision.

"Well," he mumbled, floating up towards the center of the section of the library he was in. "This is confusing. I could use a book or something, sure, but on what? How to open up portals to the earth?" There was a thrumming in the air, almost like a heartbeat, as all the records of knowledge lit up and several flew towards him. "Uh-huh… Ok, I need to be more specific than that apparently… " How he was able to read any of these titles was beyond him. Maybe spirits had the ability to read their own language or something. "I need to be able to access the portals that are opening themselves, and be able to get to the part of the Spirit World they lead to… How to access portals at a distance?"

Three dull orange books flew to his arms, the brightest glowing of them all tugging him out of the library once he grabbed hold of it. "I'm being pulled by sentient objects all the time today. Clockwork must be laughing at me, if they have the energy to after restoring an entire kingdom sized palace to this condition." Danny didn't even need to make any of the turns, the books seemed to know where they were going perfectly well. A door with a spiral of various colors on it opened up for him and Danny was treated to quite the sight.

The room Danny found himself in was at least half as huge as the library and covered in circles of ever size he could imagine. There were orbs of light dangling in the air and spirals of chalk, ink, graphite and other substances that he didn't remember the names of marked the solid surfaces around the room. Tables and counters rose from the orange stone seamlessly, and above most hovered orange holographic keyboards and screens. "Looks like NASA mission control," Danny muttered, floating closer to the center of the room, "except in orange, and with funky disco balls made of plasma."

The book that had brought him there opened up for the halfa to read, but attempting to do so had given the teen a headache. "Lovely, relying on an internal translator leads to head-splitting migraines." Looking around the room, Danny sagged his shoulders and touched down on the floor. Most of the glowing orbs faded out of existence, and the halfa rolled his eyes. "And apparently there are several places with a clearance level restriction. I'll have to learn a whole nother language just to understand this place… well, Esperanto wasn't so bad so hopefully, this isn't too different."

Letting out a sigh, Danny pulled one of the probes he had brought with him out of his pocket, activated the silver and green sphere with the press of a button and tossed it to the center of the large circular room he found himself in. In a whir of mechanical noise, an oblong object hovered a meter above the floor pulsating with green light. A check of the radar on his wrist showed that it was broadcasting properly and Danny collected the books in his arms. "I'll need a while to sort through whatever language this is, and I don't have the Time right now… or do I?" Taking a deep breath, Danny concentrated on the ectoplasm around him and focused on the shape of his own body. A moment later and another ghost teen was floating in front of him. "I should do this to avoid skipping class."

"Would this technically count as taking a class?" Both Dannys considered the copy's question before shrugging.

"Independent study sounds more appropriate in this case," he decided and floated off into the central space of the first floor. "I'll leave you to study up on ancient languages and stuff while I return this map to Frostbite." Pulling out the second probe, the halfa tossed it to the center of what he assumed was the meeting hall, and flew off through the halls to the entrance, letting the Infimap's odd semi-consciousness guide him. Once he was outside, Danny flew to the edge of the city and placed a probe above one of the wrecked gates. "Looks like even Clockwork has limits. The rest of this city is still in ruins it looks like."

Satisfied that he had successfully marked this lost continent, the halfa rose up above the treetops and held the infimap above his head. "Thank you, infimap. Take me back to the Far Frozen." He was encased in the bright blue light of the map and the woosh of hitting what might have been supersonic speeds hit him dead in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, I edited scenes from the first draft of this story and put them all into the ending of the second day in the story. also, this is the end of Day 2 of the Age


	5. Huge Game, Hugh's Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young Teens Plot to Seige Government Fortress, Arrogant Local Business Man is Taunted by a god, Young Psychic Child Hears Screaming Dead, Activistic Rich Kid Schemes With Yeti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> un beta'd of course, here's chapter five finally complete. enjoy.

At his work table at home, Tucker set down his tools and gently lifted up the plastic rectangle that held his possible future in it to his face.  A push of the button and the screen slowly came to life.  “Eureka!  The Foley Phone Model 1 is finally complete!  With this bad boy, I’ll storm the market and make a big name for myself.”  Tucker flipped through the various settings and applications he had made for the phone.  “Now all I need is access to a reasonable satellite system and a good internet signal… and a replica of this in every color of the rainbow.”  Tucker tapped his chin in contemplation, wondering where he was gonna get the materials for that.  He then spotted a spider nearing his computer and slammed down on it with the nearby fly swatter.  “Gross.  I can’t have spiders invading the home.”  Tucker stood up and moved to grab the least strongly scented bug spray that was on the market and detoxify the room before a gentle vibration from his finger caught his attention.  The scarab scepter turned ring.

“That would probably be a bad idea to use reality warping power for a couple of easy to do chores,” Tucker said.  He turned the ring around his finger a couple times before shrugging.  “Then again, Danny uses his power to manipulate gravity to clean his house better.”  Tucker snapped his hand forward and the ring returned to scepter form in his hand.  Warmth flooded his body and he could suddenly see each individual insect invading his home both inside and out.  A flick of his wrist and they were all frozen in their tiny tracks.  “A bit of transmutation can always come in handy.”  The scepter was pointed at the Foley Phone and beside it, a replica in neon green appeared.  “That takes care of all the bugs that were in the house and the yard, but-”

Tuck was cut off by a beeping noise coming from the Gearpad in his room.  He ran through the house into the room and picked it up, selecting the latest notification.  “Hugh Guttermuth: Hybrid.  Shit gotta tell Danny and Sam.”  Tucker compacted the scepter into its ring form and pulled out his phone, dialing Danny as quickly as the buttons could handle.  “Danny, I need you to come over here immediately, there’s an update on the latest halfa.  Calling Sam next.”  Tuck hung up quickly and relayed the same message to his goth friend before fiddling around with the tablet and activating its holographic projection function.

When Danny and Sam arrived, they waved hello to Tucker’s mom and beelined for his room, Danny phasing them in.  “What’s going on, Tuck?”  Danny asked, letting go of Sam and sliding over next to Tucker to stare at the hologram.  “That’s a new halfa there on the map, and he’s moving pretty fast.”

“His name is Hugh Guttermuth.  I looked him up, he’s 16 years old, president of the debate club at his high school in DC and an honor roll junior.  His parents haven’t paid any amount of money needed for a long trip like what he’s taken between when he turned and now.”  Tucker pointed to the hologram from where he sat at his computer.  “I checked friends of his as well, and there’s no way he’s traveling by any airline or train tracks, since no one around him bought plane or train tickets, and he’s not following the path of any airlines so that means he’s not on a regular plane,”  Tucker growled and stopped typing.  “Danny couldn’t move half that fast when he first started up so he’s not flying under his own power.  That means that Hugh is in a private jet following a flight path not explicitly released to the public.”

“Someone caught him and kidnapped him right after he became a half ghost,” Danny muttered, staring at the little dot on the screen that was heading south-west.  “The only ones in DC who would know what he is or have any interest in him would be the Guys in White.”

“With that new Anti-Ecto Act around the corner those jackasses can get away with treating Hugh like garbage,” Sam said, nails digging into her palm.  “We have to get him out as soon as possible.  Tucker, where are they taking him?”  Sam pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts, trying to think of how best to deal with this situation.

“Their American headquarters.  I’ve got the coordinates already, and if we assemble a small squadron of allied ghosts, we can get in, get Hugh, and get out.”  Tuck pushed his glasses up from his nose and narrowed his eyes.  “Danny, do you think you can find Wulf?”

“I probably could,” Danny said.  He sat down on the air, eyes glowing like torches and the air crisp and cool.  “Except I know from the times that Mom and Dad fangirled over the GIW’s advancements in technology that they purchased from FentonWorks that they’ve got intense ectoshielding that would negate any intersecting of our dimension with the Zone.”  Danny let little balls of ectoplasma flow off of him and surround the trio, green willo wisps filling up the room slowly.  “We’ll need some other way of getting in there.  I’ll have to track down the list of things that Mom and Dad made to help the GIW but we’re not gonna get in there before Hugh is locked up tight and experimented on.”  The wisps flew around Danny’s hand and circled it, growing into a bright flame.  “We’ll need a small army to get in there.”

“Which you have at your disposal in the form of the Far Frozen and Dora’s knights,” Sam said.  “If you ask them for help and explain the situation then Frostbite definitely and maybe even Dora will lend you their support to free him.”  Sam snapped her fingers and grinned.  “We can also ask them for help in advertising that ghosts aren't all evil and spread it across the world.  While the GIW are scrambling to cover up actual ghosts talking to the public about their rights and how they’re thinking beings, you guys can swoop in and take em out.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea on the attacking front,” Tucker said, pulling up an image on his computer screen.  “I’ve got here the location of their American headquarters.  Not something they want the public knowing but hey, I don’t care what those bird turds want.  Death Valley isn’t a place that’s exactly good for ghosts, especially not ones with ice cores.”  Tucker leaned back and sighed.  “Since ectoplasm is so conductive of all kinds of energy, especially electromagnetic, they’d soak up the heat like sponges.  Too much heat, overcharged ectoplasmic forms, they lose stability trying to contain all that power that they’re passively taking in like plants, and then they melt into puddles of glowing green goo.”

“Since cold cores like me Klemper and the Far Frozen absorb heat three times more effectively than other ghosts, we’d melt sooner than others,” Danny closed his hand and smothered the flame.  “It’s why I hate the summer heat.  Maybe we can get Undergrowth to focus on the rainforests instead of killing people.  I’d like to have actual winters back.”  He flopped backward and stood after doing a flip.  “I need a plan to get in there without setting off the alarms, though the plan to spread awareness about the good ghosts is a good plan too.”  Danny smiled at Sam and patted Tucker’s shoulder.  “Any ideas on the stealth front?”

Tucker turned his ring around his finger a few times, staring at his screen and flying through scenarios in his head.  Finally, he came to a halt.  “...Iron Man Armor model 7 version 3?”

“Tucker, what are you talking about?”  Danny shook his head at the fellow nerd.  “There’re only 2 versions of the ooh I get it!  We can construct stealth armor for ourselves that works against the alarms of the base, sneak in, grab Hugh, and get out.  And have backup waiting to pick us up.  That’s useless unless we can… oh.  Oh, that’s beautiful,” Danny said.  He stopped moving and absorbed all of his wisps, focusing on one large one.  “Use this one as a reference point.”

“Danny, what are you doing?”  Sam took a step back and pulled an amethyst necklace from her bag.  Tucker could smell magick from the rock and held back a grin.   _ Apparently, Sam has been practicing her witchcraft. _  Tuck then turned his focus back onto Danny’s fireball.  It rippled and sparked before liquidizing and melding into… something.  A shape that didn’t stop changing, swirling in on itself and changing size.

“Is that a hypershape?  Did you just make a portal?”  Tucker stood up and held a hand up to the portal.  A head popped out of it and Phantom’s grin was in his face.  Instead of jumping like he would have last year, Tucker curled his hands into fists to cover up the claws that jutted out.  “How did you do this?”

“I remembered that my future self could do it, Wulf can do it, Clockwork can do it, why not me?”  Danny shrugged and his face shrunk back into the volatile shape.  “The duplicate I left at the palace has been studying all night how to make a portal and finally figured it out.  This solves the issue of getting from place to place since the spirits and I can just hop on through a portal into GIW space.”

“But that only works if you and I can get inside and take their primary security systems down while Sam and her group have done their campaign against the Act,” Tucker pointed out, turning to Sam once the portal collapsed on itself like a dying star.  The goth was already on the phone and walking around.

“Star?  Hey, it’s Sam again.  Listen, I need a big favor.  I’ve gotten into contact with Phantom, and I know that with his help we can stomp down this act.  Paulina’s been playing publicist for him and you’ve got the connections we need to get this legally spread across the country, right?”  Danny opened his mouth, but Sam held up a finger to silence him.  “Yes.  Uh huh.  Phantom can gather some of his friends in the Ghost Zone and then we can interview each of them on how they feel about them and their fellow ghosts getting their rights taken away.  Yeah, we can play up the fact that most ghosts don’t care for taking over the world.  Yeah.”  Sam frowned, sat down, and let out a deep sigh.  “Hold on.”  She hit a button and turned to Danny.  “We need you to promise Paulina that you’ll meet with her in person before we can get their help with this.”

“Star knows basically everyone, Danny,” Tucker said before the ghost boy could protest.  “Paulina’s been running eight different blogs about why you’re a good guy, not a bad guy, sending out Wes to collect evidence.  He’s gotten quite a few good shots of you saving people… and of your developing muscles and ass.”

“We need their support for this to work, don’t we?”  His friends nodded and Danny groaned.  He transformed, filling the air with the scent of burnt skin and denim.  “Hand me the phone,” he said in his now echoic voice that always made Tucker shiver internally.  “Hello?”  Danny held the phone considerably far away from his face and Tucker winced in unison with him at the loud shriek from the other end.  “Uh huh, yeah that’s me.  Look, if the GIW get this law passed, they’ll be able to take me in and arrest anyone trying to help me.  We need your help to keep that from happening.  I don’t want to be experimented on, and I don’t want everyone’s dead relatives getting that treatment either.”  Tucker watched Danny slowly spin his body vertically, his hair ignoring the laws of gravity as much as the rest of him, and snickered.  “Yeah, I promise I’ll meet you both for an interview for your blogs.  Yeah.  Uh, ok.  Thank you.”  He handed the phone back to Sam and sighed, flopping onto Tucker’s bed while transforming back into human form.  “Blegh, that was awkward.”

“Go on patrol, sing songs from The Heathers, play games with children, whatever,” Tucker gently pushed Danny out of his room.  “Go build a positive public image while I start designing our way to winning this war.”  The GIW had most definitely declared war, and they were going to answer.

* * *

 

A man stood over the control panel for a large and complex machine, dressed in a surgically clean white lab coat, long white pants and a pair of safety goggles.  The screen he gazed upon was a bright iridescent green, with dark reds and blues flitting across it.  The charts and graphs brought a smile to his face, and he turned back to the large metal chamber to his left.  In it was dark purple fluid full of various nutrients and enzymes, a ball of flesh floating within.  His first attempts truly were foolish, as he thought of them now.  He had all of the necessary components without much need of anyone else.  One last check of the status of the homunculus in the pod, and he turned to take off his gloves and hood.

Just as stark white and grey hair fell back out of the confines of the lab coat’s hood, a weight fell upon the man’s neck and chest, and sensitive ears noted that all sounds had completely ceased.  In a flash of darkness, Vlad Plasmius whirled around with a hand full of blazing crimson fire, ruby eyes scanning the area for whatever intruder had interrupted his work.  “I have documents to write and business to attend to, so whoever you are, show yourself now or make your leave of me.”  Glancing down at his chest, he lifted a golden gear with five teeth and a fancy CW written in blue in the center connected to the leather strap around his neck.  “And what kind of jewelry is this?  I thought I made it clear that I am not accepting any courtship from the Ghost Zone.”

“It’s not exactly a courtship,” a deep and rather dry voice echoed from everywhere.  Shimmering into existence was the form of a spirit with blue skin, red eyes, and a purple, clock themed tunic.  “Interesting to finally make your acquaintance in person, Vlad.  A fireball is hardly a polite way to greet a guest.”  The spirit’s form regressed steadily into that of an infant’s.

“Yes, well when that guest is uninvited I tend to care less about pleasantries,” Vlad said, returning to human form.  He could tell from the way that Time was stilled and the spirit’s aura filled the room that it would be unwise to instigate a fight with this ghost.  “Who are you, exactly?  I like to know the names of those who know my own.”

“I am Clockwork, spirit of Time,” they said, leaning on their staff like a cane when their infantile body stretched and grew into that of an elder.  “Before you ask, yes, I move along the axes of time like you do the axes of space.  That’s hardly anything special, though.  Not compared to the impacts that mere mortals such as yourself can have on the Timelines.”  Vlad raised a brow, and Clockwork waved their hand.  A checkerboard materialized between them and chess pieces spun into existence from their ectoplasm.  The bishop became Clockwork in their young adult form - which they held now.  “You’re a man of strategy, are you not?”  They waved a hand and the other bishop on their side became Tucker Foley.  The rooks Valerie Gray and Sam Manson.  One knight became Vlad in his Plasmius form.  It floated above the board, however, and glitched between Plasmius and Masters.

“I am.  Would this be an allusion to the game you wish to play with me, Time Lord?”  Vlad picked up his piece, fascinated with the way it glitched more frequently beneath his fingers.  “I must admit, it’s flattering to be considered a player against a powerful, and dare I presume ancient, ghost.”  Vlad smiled, moving the black king out of the way and setting his piece down there.  “Very well, I accept.”

“Oh, Vlad no,” Clockwork chuckled.  “I never said I was playing against you in a game of chess.”  The pieces righted themselves on the board with a flick of Clockwork’s finger.  “There is a game going on already, though against whom is a bit of a secret.  You aren’t in a role that can accept or deny the game.”  The now childish form of Clockwork shook with suppressed laughter when Vlad’s gaze turned baleful toward them.   _ Mortals are far too easy _ .

“If you are implying that I am a pawn, Clockwork, then I must inform you that I am no game piece.”  Vlad’s eyes flared up red and he clenched his fists behind him.  “I will not be played as a fool.”

“That’s been done so often, I don’t feel it’d be enough of a challenge.”  Clockwork shook their head.  “And I never said you were a pawn; clearly, you are a knight.”  They tossed their staff from hand to hand, grin never leaving their face.  “You are just as much a game piece as young Daniel or Valerie.”  Transformative darkness washed over half of Vlad’s body before fizzling out, leaving him completely unchanged.  “Now now, that was hardly an insult.  No need to be hostile, Vlad.”  Clockwork pointed with their staff and Vlad was sitting in his recliner from the floor above.  “Relax, will you?  You are no more a pawn than Daniel or Valerie, more a prized piece of the far more complicated game at play.  I’ve been waiting for this period of time where I can take you out of my opponent’s hands.”

A vortex of electric blue, both liquid and gaseous at the same time, was behind Clockwork, and Vlad had to wonder if it had always been there, or if it had just manifested.  “Please do consider the side working toward your freedom, Vlad.  I’d have to have to take you  _ out _ of play.”  The last Vlad saw of Clockwork, the medallion was in their hand and they waved their wrinkled old hand at him.

Color returned to the room and the billionaire slowly exhaled a jet of flame.  Fire burned under his palms against the chair and he stood up stiffly.  "A bit of target practice should help me unwind… Corvus." A solid light projection of a man in his late 20's with pitch black hair, dark brown eyes, and a beak nose appeared, the Maddie and Jack holograms replaced after the debacle with Danielle and the other homunculi. "Remind me in, say, thirty minutes to prepare the proper documentation for Phillip. I don't want to forget after my workout."

"As you wish, Mr. Masters," a Russian baritone responded, "and your meetings with the Axiom board of directors, and Guys in White R&D head scientists? Shall I reschedule so that you are not impeded by emotional unrest due to the cause of the spike in ectoplasmic energy moments ago?"

Vlad waved his electronic assistant off as he headed for the stairs. "No, I should be fine by the end of my practice, if in need of sustenance. Tell Alexander to make me the usual after my workout.  And get the vultures to move that chair back upstairs." The program bowed and vanished, whilst Vlad ascended the stairs to the main part of his mansion.

* * *

 

Pain is what he woke to, stabbing, burning, gut-wrenching pain.  Hugh screamed with every bit of breath he could draw in.  There was a rush of cold that invaded every bit of who and what he was, and light flooded his eyes.  Hugh screamed again and pulled, yanking the straps he was tied down with out from the metal slab beneath him and rolling over onto his side.  He wobbled on his feet, vision blurry, and looked down to his scarred and bleeding chest.  Green liquid seeped from his skin that mixed with red.  Danger.   _ Run _ .  His mind helpfully repeated these two things and Hugh obeyed as best he could, flailing in terror when arms wrapped around his to hold him back.  Cracks filled the air along with the scent of burning lemons, and something hot and bright nearly hit him in the face.

A door.  He ran for it, nearly tripping over something and bumping into the table he had been strapped to.  He forced the door open and scrambled backward when he heard the sound of a thousand wings beating against the air.  Someone was suddenly  _ there _ blocking his way.  Hugh reared back and threw a wild punch.  It was caught, held in a steel grip while his foot came up to meet the crotch of the man in white that was attacking him.  Hugh felt something hit him in the chest and he went crashing down against the table, head, and stomach throbbing in pain.  Before the teen could do any more than scream for help, cool fingers pressed against his forehead and ice flooded his system before unconsciousness and darkness consumed him.

When the subject fell limp and unconscious, white light washed over its body and the smell of burning skin doubled in the room.  The seemingly human boy lay against the metal slab and his shirt was once again removed so that they could continue the tagging.  The angel that had stepped in and knocked the boy out took off his sunglasses, revealing eyes that burned with silver light.  “This boy is no mere ghost.  It is half human, half spirit, a sign that the Netherworld is bleeding into this world.”

“What kind of abomination-”

“That’s possible?  I didn’t know that ectoplasmic beings-”

“We should kill it right now, find whatever others are like it around the world and slaughter the lot of them.”

The scientists and agents in the room argued between each other over the possibility of higher dimensional beings being able to reproduce with humans, but the agent latched onto the words of the last one.  “No.  We shall use this boy, train him and make him our own.”  Agent Alpha smiled coldly and put his sunglasses back on after polishing them.  “What better weapon against those filthy spirits than their own blood?”  There was a chorus of approval from around the room, no one wanting to argue with the head of their organization and the agent turned to the head scientist.  “When the boy wakes again, make sure he is fed before taking him to Gabriel and make sure that I am alerted as immediately as possible.”

“Yes, sir!”  The agent left the room and vanished.  The room was quiet and the scientists returned to their duties.  “Make sure those guns are tuned to multilevel phasing next time, got it?”

* * *

 

_ There was singing above her, a chorus of voices that sang both in harmony and at complete random.  They weren’t singing, their voices were songs but they weren’t truly singing.  It was a song of control and suppression, of structure and hierarchy and order.  There was laughter below her, far far below.  The sound of madness of something confined that needed to get out out out, it was not a force of restrictions or of rules, it was anarchic fire striving to be free.  The trees whispered tales of the world’s past in her ears while the stars displayed each future she could possibly see and-IT HURTS GOD IT HURTS MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP! _

Elle bolted upright, transformed into her ghost form and fired an ectobolt in front of her.  It bounced off of a pink dome and Elle snapped back into the here and now, staring at Blitz with a touch of horror.  Elle extinguished the green flame in her hand and reverted back to human form, launching herself forward and wrapping Blitz up in a tight hug.  “Oh my gosh, Blitz!  Blitz my vision it, it got interrupted and I was in so much pain and it  _ hurt _ !”  There was a calming touch at her back and her head, warmth flowing through Elle’s whole body and making her muscles relax slowly and steadily.

“Alright Faisca, can you tell me what you saw?  It might be something of importance to follow up on.”  Blitz sat down with Elle in her lap, looking down into the girl’s eyes.

“Ok, ok, so I was in this grass field right next to a forest and I was laying down like Caleb does when he gets into arguments with the jungle, and there were a bunch of stars out.  I could hear singing from above and laughter underneath me and there were a bunch of stories being told all at once in the forest.  I could even hear whispers from the stars.”  As she spoke, Elle gestured wildly and floated into the air.  “When I started listening to the trees, I heard a scream and everything else stopped except the singing.  It was a voice calling out for help and then I could suddenly feel the pain of whoever it was that was screaming.”  Elle shivered and reached for the warmth of magick in her heart.  It was relaxing to know that her life force was still thrumming just as strongly in her chest as he ghostly power.

“Sounds like someone’s calling out for help and you picked up on the SOS,” Blitz said.  She stared off into the distance, trying to think of ways to decode the situation.  “Do you remember… any other particular details?  Where was the pain specifically?  Any distinguishing changes in your surroundings when you heard the scream?”  In a move that always calmed the children down, Blitz channeled her magick through her fingertips into Elle, pushing her much calmer emotions onto the girl to sedate her.  “Any detail can help, faisca.”

Elle closed her eyes and breathed, embracing the calm that she knew Blitz was blanketing her in.  She reached for the pain of the vision and winced, covering her heart.  “The pain was in my chest, deep and cutting.  Something stabbed whoever was calling out.  Something similar to that.”   Elle felt herself shifting back into ghost form and the vision returned with new clarity.  “It was a guy, he was being cut up, he has an ectosignature, and it’s new.  Gods, Blitz I think I just felt someone die.”  Elle opened her eyes again, focusing on the here and now.  “Blitz, I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I faisca.  We need a plan.”  Blitz stood up and walked outside, scanning the area with bright magenta eyes.  There were few things in the jungle nearby that might be of use for helping her get to the bottom of this, but she did feel the echoes of death now that she was searching for them.  It felt very similar to Elle when she was transforming, and the thought of her little girl getting stabbed by someone brought white-hot sparks of electricity to Blitz’ palms.  Sensing Elle behind her, Blitz exhaled her tension and turned back to her little girl.  And the pack on her back.  “Faisca, what are you doing?”

“I have to go see Danny, talk to him about this,” Elle answered, checking her pockets for anything that she had infused with enough ecto energy to stay with her in either form.  She pulled out a whistle and smiled.  “He’s the only authority on ghosts that I know.  I’ll be back after I talk with him, I promise.”  Elle was pulled into a tight hug and felt the magick tying her down.  She smiled into the embrace and wrapped her small arms around Blitz in return.

“You are an infant in the body of a ten-year-old girl, Elle,” Blitz reminded her.  “You can’t just go and investigate a murder on your own.  And no, I don’t think a fifteen-year-old with destructive powers and a strong case of altruism is enough to constitute proper backup.  He let you go out into the world on your own, didn’t he?  That’s a pretty poor father if I’ve ever heard of one.”

“He’s not my father, Blitz,” Elle shook her head.  “Danny is just… my original.  The source material to my spin-off.  That doesn't make him my dad.”

“Alright, we haven’t gotten to this part of biology in your studies,” Blitz rolled her eyes, pulling back enough so that she could make eye contact with Elle.  “However, I can assure you that genetically he’s your father.  You may not match his gender, but according to you he’s the only genetic source material there was for you, correct?”  A nod from Elle.  “That means that genetically he’s your father.  And while I understand that most teenagers aren’t ready for fatherhood, I still say he should’ve stepped up in  _ some _ way.  You’re flying into the arms of a kid who let you go off on your own twice with no definitive knowledge that you were going to survive, I can’t say that I’m exactly ok with that.”

“But you also can’t force me to stay here,” Elle countered, unable to think of a good way to disprove Blitz’s words.  “I’ll talk some fatherly sense into him, I can defend myself pretty well, and his friends are both pretty responsible too.  Plus, I’ll have Fido with me.  Fido won’t let anything  _ bad _ happen to me.”  Elle floated with her back straight and arms crossed, a smile on her face that said I’m right and you know I am.

Blitz stared into Elle’s eyes as she went over every scenario she could cook up that would go even the slightest bit in Elle’s favor, each a bit more optimistic than the last.  Elle was right, Blitz couldn't keep her there forever.  Elle would find a way around her eventually.  Letting out a sigh, she pulled the tiny floating girl into another tight hug.  “You will come back to me as soon as you possibly can, faisca.”  It was an order, not a request.

“Yes ma’am, Blitz,” Elle laughed and squeezed the woman back before floating backward several feet.  “Tell the others 'see ya later' for me?”  Blitz nodded and Elle zoomed up into the air.  She whistled sharply, the sound echoing throughout the home area before a tear in reality appeared.  Swirling green mist that refused to stay one shape.  A large green hound bounded out of it, green and pink collar still wrapped firmly around his neck.  He licked Elle’s everywhere and the ghost girl laughed, phasing it off.  “Hey Fido, hey boy.  We’re going on a trip!  You wanna go on a trip?”  The dog barked and Elle scratched his chin.  “Good boy!”  She circled around to his back and held onto the collar.  “Let’s go!”  Another loud bark and he took her through the portal he had formed.

* * *

 

“Alright, I got an hour of publicity building in, avoided my parents and Valerie the whole time, and now it’s time to head into the Zone and talk with Frostbite about help with building the armor,” Danny said into his Fenton Phones, heading for his house.  “Tuck, you and Jazz will stay behind to guard the town while Sam and I go in to talk politics and war.”  Danny dropped into his room, switching to human form upon landing.  He stretched and grinned at the eyeroll Jazz was giving him.  “What?”

“There’s an already viral video of you singing Let It Go with girls at the park, making a tiny ice castle for them,” Jazz chuckled.  “And it’s all over the phan blogs that you were giving a few kids rides on your back around the park.  It’s hilarious and adorable.”

“Why thank you, Jazz,” Danny gave a mock bow to the applause of Sam and Tuck. “I try sometimes.”  He grabbed his backpack and checked that everything he needed was still in there before holding out his arm to Sam.  “Time to get serious though.  We have to break into the GIW, Jazz.  To do this, I'll need to be able to avoid the cameras but also the ectoplasmic energy detectors." Danny drew in the air with his ectoplasm, making a rough sketch of what he was thinking of.  “Something that'll dampen my ectosignature to as low as it is in human form. That way, I can sneak into the base undetected and grab Hugh. First thing I'll do is plug in the USB with Tucker's virus-"

"No, I will upload my own virus, thank you very much." Tucker looked up from his typing for a moment to give his friend a playful glare. "Don't think you can take the glory for dismantling the GIW from me."

Danny snorted and nodded, waving away the full body example and focusing on the individual parts of the core of the suit. "I'll make two suits then, and while Tuck is uploading the virus, I'll find Hugh and get him out. We'll need Tuck to guide me to his cell anyway, so that's actually a great idea."

"Do we have any weapons to deal with humans?" Sam pulled out her phone and quickly scrolled through the list of weapons they had. "And I mean deal with them quickly. A pretty potent, odorless knockout gas would probably do the trick."

"Sam, do you want to come with me to find something in the Zone that can serve as knockout gas?" Danny grinned when the goth smirked at him. "Good, I want to know what plants to avoid as well. Jazz, think you can keep Amity covered with the Red Huntress while we're doing this?"

"Is there any doubt, little brother?" Jazz set down her notebook and smiled. "Not only that, but I'll try and prepare to help Hugh deal with whatever trauma that he's currently experiencing. Who knows what the GIW are doing to him?"

"Illegal things that are going to get them thrown in jail for the rest of their lives and possibly their afterlives," Sam growled as she snapped her book shut. "C'mon Danny, I want to get to work right away. Jazz, you and Tucker have the city covered, for now, right?"

"Yeah," Tucker answered before Jazz had the chance. "Plus, we'll call if we need you and Alpha will open up a portal for you. Now go, make out in the Specter Speeder under the pretense of searching for ghost plants." Tucker made a shooing motion and ducked when a spider bag was thrown at him. "Hey, writing a dangerous virus that could wipe the entire internet clean here. Please don't make me fuck up the keystrokes."

Sam rolled her eyes as Danny phased them down to the lab with a chuckle. "We'll be back asap." When they entered the lab, Sam headed into the speeder while Danny opened up the portal. "Honestly, Sam, why do you still react to him teasing us about that? It's not like we actually have any romantic feelings for each other."

“I know,” Sam sighed.  “I’m just tired of his dodge!”  Sam whipped out her wrist ray when a blur of red, white, blue and blond came from the portal.  Klemper lingered for less than a moment, dropping the temperature as he waved at the ghost hunters and flew straight up.  Shrugging her shoulders, Sam entered the Speeder with a call of, “I’ll warm ‘er up.”

“Thanks,” Danny mumbled, floating up into his room with a blank expression.   _ How do I even react to this? _  Tucker was typing at a furious pace still, unperturbed by the lonely ghost’s presence, like Jazz.  Except Jazz was laying on Danny’s bed, a clipboard in hand and stopping mid-sentence to look at him.  “What?”

“Oh right,” she chuckled, standing up smoothly. “I forgot about an appointment I had for this afternoon. We’ll take this to my room.  Don’t worry Danny, the house is set to ignore the ectosignatures of my clients.”  Jazz waved and tugged Klemper out of his room, leaving Danny stunned.

“… Huh,” was all Danny managed to think of before sinking back down into the Specter Speeder.  “Jazz is a ghost psychiatrist.  ParaPsychologist?”  He tapped his chin in consideration and turned to Sam as they passed through the event horizon of the portal.  “Do you think she charges them?”

* * *

 

When Sam and Danny arrived they were greeted just as warmly as ever.  Frostbite pulled Danny into a bone-crushing hug, and Sam into a gentler one.  Once the pleasantries were out of the way, and the explanation of Hugh’s dilemma explained, Frostbite took them to the weapons development lab of the village.  The head scientist there, Frigis, bowed her head to her chief and held out a hand to Danny.  “What brings you here, Frostbite, Great One?”

“The Great One and Lady Sam bring dire news, Frigis,” Frostbite explained, drawing attention from the scientists around the room who could afford to give it.  “Another half spirit has been born of a portal, and the Guys in White have captured him.  The Great One requires aid in the half blood’s rescue; give it to him.”  The yeti nodded firmly and turned to Danny, who immediately began recounting the idea he had with Tucker to get into the base.  Sam, meanwhile, cleared her throat and drew Frostbite’s attention to her.  “Ah yes, and you Lady Sam?  I imagine you didn’t come simply to help the Great One deliver a message.”

Sam had pulled out one of her journals, this one labeled  Spiritual Flora , and a pencil.  “We want to minimize casualties on this mission, so we’re hoping that there’s some Ghost Zone plant you know of that we can use for the most potent knock out gas possible.”

“We do know of a few,” Frostbite confirmed with a shrug.  “More simply, however, many go to Nocturn for sleep aid.  He is the Spirit of Sleep, after all.  I am sure that he would lend you his yawning mists for such a task.”  The teens groaned simultaneously and Frostbite grinned, raising a brow.  “Bad relations?”

“He tried to put the world to sleep forever so that he could have a constant power source to feed off of,” Sam answered.  “We busted up his dream draining machine and woke everyone up, foiling his plans.  I honestly still wonder if he knew that humans need to wake up and see to their biological needs in order to survive, because had we not beaten him, everyone’d be dead.”

In retrospect and based on the looks on the teens’ faces, laughing was probably not the best initial response.  Frostbite couldn’t help himself, however, and patted first Sam, and then Danny on the back.  He was not the only one to get a kick out of the children’s words.  “Apologies, young ones.  I do not think you fully understand.  If Nocturne, Prince of the Night, so desired the Earth to sleep all at once then no human would wake again.”  The teens stiffened, and Frostbite sighed.  “I remember him complaining to me about Clockwork cashing in on a favor, recently.  Something about testing their young charge.”  The yeti gave Sam a gentle squeeze on the shoulder and ruffled Danny’s hair.  “I assure you, he will help if you explain the situation.  The children of the Netherworld are precious to all of us old spirits.”

“I’ll have to have a talk with CW about that when this is over,” Danny muttered before refocusing on the project at hand.  “It has to contain the radiation that is my ectosignature and block out the ambient transdimensional radiation that I absorb naturally…”

“We’ll make sure to ask Nocturn today if he’ll help us, then.”  Sam closed her notebook and put it away.  She pulled out a folder instead and looked back up to meet Frostbite’s red gaze.  “Another half of the problem is a law that’s about to be passed by the government of our country.  It might even affect the other ones around the world if the GIW see that our own is compromised by their lies.”  The crystal that hung from her choker shimmered a tad brighter and Sam sifted through the pages of her folder.  “It’s a law that would ban the presence of any extra-dimensional beings on earth, label any self-aware beings that aren’t human as nonsentient and unfeeling.  A law that would give the GIW full permission and access to whatever resources deemed necessary to purge the world of the threat they claim nonhuman beings pose.  They’d get away with torturing and murdering the spirits and ghosts of whomever they wanted to, the eyes of the human world deeming their actions acceptable.”

“That’s vile and disgusting,” Frostbite growled, a puff of frosty air leaving his nose.  “How could leaders be so blind as to believe those parasites?”

“No one besides us really knows anything about you guys here in the Netherworld,” Sam answered, scowl curling into a smirk as fierce as any of Frostbite’s warriors.  “And I have a plan to change that.  If people can see that you guys are all just as varied and conscious as any human being, I’m sure they’ll listen and oppose the law’s validation.”

Frostbite’s grin matched Sam’s own and he offered a quick bow.  “However I may help you,  Lady Sam.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I for one, think that Vlad deserves some smack talk from a being he can't hurt. No matter how fucking hard he tries. :)  
> So, who can guess what the GIW are lead by? Please, post your guesses in the comment section.  
> I have established, off script, a round table of sorts that will span the whole universe. And I am having so very much fun with it. Blitz is a part of this.
> 
>  
> 
> So, thoughts and questions?


	6. Restful Fights, Hellish Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Girl Interrupts War Negotiations, Teen Fights Little Girl, Captured Teen Finds his Sass Unhelpful, Local Superhero Fights Native Spirit, Abducted Teen Clings to Sanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY It's Rexy here to give you more of Phantom Age. So, I took some advice from my beta reader based on the original draft of this story, but have not yet shown him in full, all of this. This draft is unbeta'd. Also life's gonna get hectic with the Christmas season coming up and my vehement attempts to try and find more interesting ghosts to have random encounters with for Danny throughout the story. I hope you all like it.
> 
> EDIT: I added a scene at the end that's not supposed to be there, which I noticed upon checking my outline while writing the next chapter to this. Whoops.

When Danny was satisfied that he and the engineers of the Far Frozen had the basic needs for the stealth suits down, he walked out to see Sam finishing up a conversation with one of the Yeti.  Her camera was put away and the goth held a hand out for a high-five.  “Got the interviews you wanted?  I’m pretty sure I was in there for like, three hours.”

“Three hours and twelve minutes,” Sam corrected.  Danny stuck his tongue out at her and the goth rolled her eyes.  “I got the interviews, the people here are all pretty eager to help me out.”  They walked to the Speeder and Sam opened it up.  “Made good progress on the suit design?”  While Danny sat in the pilot seat, Sam warmed up the weapon systems to make sure none of them were frozen up by the temperature.  “Guns are loaded up and still ready to blaze.”

“We’ve got the basic methods of cloaking my ectosignature _and_ keeping me from melting into a puddle of goo.  Tuck’s suit will be easier to make and they have my measurements from the time Undergrowth attacked, so they’ll work on getting mine done first.”  Danny pulled the Speeder out of the Far Frozen realm and put the coordinates Frostbite gave them into the nav computer.  “Once we get Tuck’s measurements to them, we can start on his suit.  For now, let’s head to dreamland.”

 

The Speeder slowed down steadily as they entered a star-filled sky, the weapons shut down for recharge.  In every direction, the world made less sense than it normally did.  Every constellation visible from Earth lay before them, connected by ribbons of Aurora.  Giant purple bats and ravens with for heterochromic eyes that sparkled in the light of a moon that was shifting phases every second filled the air.  Superheroes battled beasts of inky darkness next to rockstars belting out impossible songs.  The only constant was a castle-like mansion that rested upon an island the size of Puerto Rico.  A herd of sheep and goats made of galaxies and dark clouds of space dust roamed around the field in front of the castle, grazing idly.

Danny parked the Speeder a few yards away from the castle and poked his head out of the door cautiously.  The sheep and goats paid no mind and Danny shrugged.  “Looks clear enough.  Weapons ready but not out.  We’re here for peace and negotiations, not intimidation.”

“Intimidation that wouldn’t work anyway if Frostbite is right about that test and Nocturne’s power level.”  Despite her own pessimistic words, Sam adjusted her wrist ray to maximum output and grinned at the warmth that pressed against her wrist.  “Let’s go captain clueless.”  Sam took the lead, Danny watching her back while they approached the massive building.  The birds and bats in the sky now resembled clouds of all kinds, and the crows even shot down lightning bolts whenever a sheep or goat got too close to the path that the teens were walking on.  Or near the Specter Speeder ™ too Danny’s great interest.  When they got there, Danny knocked on the large double doors three times and waited.

The person who opened the door had navy blue skin, green buttons for eyes, and wore dark clothing that really matched well with their leathery skin.  Their mouth was a stitched open line, like an old doll that a kid took scissors to.  “Hello there,” the Sleepwalker greeted, lips turning up into a smile.  “Nice to meet you.  I assume you are here for the Morpheus treatment from Lord Nocturne?”  The teens were lead into the entry hall filled with comfy looking chairs of every variety and painted over in a rendition of the night sky.

“Not exactly…” Sam mumbled as she took in their surroundings.  The soft blue candlelight was nice, and the scent of lavender filled the air.  “We’re here to speak with Nocturne about something of grave importance.”

“Though I _am_ interested in finding out what the Morpheus treatment is,” Danny added, shrugging when Sam raised her brow at him.  “For now though, can you lead us to Nocturne please?”  The Sleepwalker nodded amicably and floated off down the corridor to the left.

“Each door you see leads to a bedroom in which ghosts are delving into their truest selves.”  Were it not for the typical tour guide tone taken with the informative tidbit, Sam might have been as suspicious as Danny.  Testing his thought, the hero focused on a thought, and the sleepwalker snorted.  It was an awkward and gross sound.  “Yes, your surface thoughts _are_ being broadcasted here, but that’s with any area full of ectoplasm.  Here, we can discern what the wavelengths mean easier than others, is all.”

“So you’re reading our thoughts to give a satisfying tour?”  Danny arched a brow in confusion, unsure of how to respond to that.  After all, mind readers were a dangerous breed of threats.  While a human telepath could simply be overwhelmed and punched, ghosts and spirits were more physically capable of handling damage.  “Isn’t that rude?”

The sleepwalker smiled at him before opening a door.  They bowed before entering and the teens decided to stay back and watch. Inside the room was a kingsized bed that looked soft enough to force a caffeinated six-year-old to sleep in an instant.  Sitting upon this bed was the Dream spirit Nocturne, body made of star dotted darkness stretching up to eight feet tall.  His face was chalk white, a scar running down from his left eye, and lavender ram’s horns curled at the sides of his head.  A blank red stare was directed to the teen’s in the hall and a hand was raised.  “You may go, Greta.”  The sleepwalker vanished from sight and Nocturne reached down to pat the head of a silky white ewe.  “Come in, come in.  It’s been a rather long time, Sam.  Phantom.”

As the two crossed the threshold, they noted that the room warped into a dark place littered with stars, ghouls, and rocket ships.  Creatures of the night and constellations danced around them, and the teens felt their eyes grow heavy.  “Nice place ya got here, very roomy.  Seems a bit dark, though.”  Danny grinned when Sam nudged him in the ribs.  “What?  It's dark as hell and I can barely see anything besides his sleepiness here.”

Rolling her eyes at Danny, Sam turned her attention back to an amused Nocturne.  “I think the reason we’ve not been around is because we thought you were an enemy, and the cool background is a dream-themed room picking up on our Dreams.  Am I right?”

“The former I cannot say, but as for the latter, you are correct.  My domain is shaped by dreams, as are my powers.”

 “A new half spirit was captured by the GIW and is on his way to their American headquarters as we speak, probably already there actually.”  Danny clenched his fist and the constellations burned with bright green light.  “He’s going to get tortured and vivisected, probably worse.”

Nocturne considered this for a moment and his frown deepened, dark clouds with rolling thunder spreading over the room.  He picked up the sheep and stroked her wool once more, dispelling the clouds and brightening the area considerably.  “I take it you need my help regarding the rescue of this boy and the other ghosts held with him?”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded, pulling out her sketch pad from her satchel.  “We’re planning on using knock out gas to deal with the GIW so that we can get the ghosts out without having to kill anyone.  Problem is, we need something that’s a guaranteed instant Knockout.  Your mist is the only thing we could come up with on short notice.”  She laid down the plans that she copied from the internet.  It was a simple smoke grenade, but they’d likely need plenty.  “Will you help us?”

“Of course I will,” Nocturne seemed to roll his eyes, but it was hard to tell since he lacked pupils or irises.  “I may be old and powerful with a nigh-infinite amount of minds to watch over, but I’m not heartless.  There are nightmares that need quelling into dreams that I can sense, but not reach.  I suspect that these are from those trapped in this base, as my powers are ectoplasmic.”  A wave of his hand and a sack full of smoke grenades appeared, caught by Danny telekinetically.  “Send the ghosts my way when you free them.  I shall -”  The ghost of sleep stopped short and turned his head completely around.  “There is a disturbance on my lawn.  It involves your symbol, Phantom.”

Before Danny could say anything in response, he was outside again with Sam and Nocturne, staring at Elle and a giant green hound dog that could’ve played with Cujo in his monster form.  The dog was currently sniffing at the sheep surrounding the mansion, and Elle was tugging hard on its collar.  Finally, she managed to pull it away from the sheep and took in her surroundings.  “C’mon Fido we gotta find… Danny?  Danny!”  Elle raced over and embraced Danny in a tight hug around his middle, leash made of ectoplasm falling from her grip.  “I’ve been looking for you!  Someone died and-”

“I know, Elle.”  Danny hugged Elle back and smiled.  Pulling back, he held her shoulders.  “He’s a new half spirit, and we’re meeting with Nocturne to talk about getting his help in saving him.  Your puppy is apparently making his sheep uncomfortable.”

“It’d be best to take the dog elsewhere,” Nocturne insisted.  “Don’t want Vortex’s crows to attack for disturbing the Dreams.”  A wave of his hand and the dog was several yards away, leash coiled around a fence.  The dog was also a lot smaller now.

“Vortex?”  Nocturne turned to Danny and the teen tucked the info away for later.  “Sorry for the interruption, my cousin can be a lot like me.”  Danny held a squirming Elle under his arm and the sack full of grenades in his other hand.  He bowed his head and smiled.  “Thank you for your help, these will make the fight a thousand times easier.”

‘Fight?”  Elle pushed out of Danny’s grip and hovered in his face.  “What fight are you talking about?  A new half ghost?  Who are you fighting, why and what does it have to do with the murder I was coming to tell you about?”  Danny sighed and snatched her out of the air, holding the girl over his shoulder.  “Hey!”

“We’ll see you again when we’ve got Hugh with us.  Thanks, Nocturne.”  Danny wrapped an arm around Sam as well and flew them over to the Specter Speeder.  Once everyone was loaded into a seat, Danny sighed and scowled.  “Alright, so, more half ghosts are popping up cause natural portals are forming up around them, one of those half ghosts is a guy named Hugh who the GIW caught probably right after his accident, and we’re planning to break him out of their headquarters along with all of their other prisoners.”  Danny tilted his head and turned to Sam.  “Did I get everything?”

“Well, you forgot the part where we’re planning to borrow soldiers from Frostbite in case of an actual battle, you’re gonna sneak in instead of blasting your way in, and the GIW are trying to get a law passed that’ll ban ghosts from stepping onto the Earthly plane.”  Sam gritted her teeth as she flew out of Nocturne’s realm, the green puppy suddenly there in Elle’s arms.  “That’d give them jurisdiction to capture and experiment on any ghosts and spirits they encounter and get away with it no matter the guilt or innocence of the captured party.  I’m working on a counter to that law.”

Elle looked from the goth to the hero, thinking back to her vision. She hadn’t felt the kid die, she felt him getting cut open.  Growling she curled her hand into a fist covered in electric sparks.  “I’m in.”

"I'm sorry, what?"  Danny quirked a brow at Elle, hands moving across the control panel to ready the weapons.  "In?  Like, joining in the fight?  Elle, if this becomes an actual fight then we're looking at warfare against people willing to melt us down into ectoplasm for fuel."  Elle's face looked a tiny bit greener, but no less resolved.  Danny sighed and combed his hand through his hair.  "If it gets out of hand, we can't guarantee that anyone will get out of it alive.  I can't knowingly send a ten-year-old out to die, cous.  Sorry."

"Oh but you can willing let a ten-year-old go out alone into the madness of the world with nothing but _probably_ stabilized ghost powers?"  Danny winced and Elle glared.  "I've been training with my caretaker, Blitz, for the past two weeks, and I was trained by Vlad for like, six months.  Specifically to take you down, Danny.  I think I can hold out against the Guys in White."  She blew away a lock of hair in her face.  "I understand my powers better than you probably do, and I can do stuff you probably can't."

"And you haven't been through a war, haven't fought an army, haven't been alive long enough to build up the skills needed in a battlefront," Sam countered as she steered them around a giant worm.  "We've been through a lot since the portal opened, Elle, and while I admire your enthusiasm and acknowledge your ability to fight, you lack the experience and the foresight to take on a battle like this, _if_ it comes down to a battle."

"So the bs I'm hearing is that, because I'm too young and haven't fought an army before, that means that all my training and various skills are useless in this fight?"  Elle could feel Fido growling in her lap and scratched his head to calm him down.  "That sounds like a load to me.  Especially since I kicked your butt when we first met."

"Caught me by surprise while I was preoccupied with fighting against a stronger, more experienced opponent and then fighting me when I refused to fight back."  Danny nodded and rolled his eyes.  "That definitely counts as kicking my butt, yeah, totally."

“If her ability to kick ass against multiple opponents is what we’re basing our ‘stay out of the fight’ argument on, why not let her prove herself?”  Sam dipped under a giant bird and grinned.  “Elle has a point about being well trained, far as I know.  You can duplicate and you have the perfect place for all this.”

Danny nodded and grinned.  “That’s true.  Elle, I know the perfect way to see if you can handle this war.  You’re gonna fight me, and if you win, we’ll talk about your role in the potential fight.”

* * *

 

Elle walked through the portal into a room full of orange and green.  There were computer consoles with chairs everywhere, and a replica of Danny floating in front of one with an orange screen projected into the air.  The duplicate waved at her, grinning slightly, and the ghost girl rolled her eyes as she waved back.  “Hey again, Danny.  What, afraid we’ll break some of your toys at home with this little sparring match?”

“I know for a fact that we will, Elle.  This is gonna be a bit more than just hand to hand.”  This Danny looked different from the original when Elle took a closer look.  His hazmat was gone, replaced with a dark shirt, black pants, and a white belt.  He flew through the door across from her, and the ghost girl followed close behind, eager to get this over with.  “I wanna get an accurate reading of your power and skills.”

Elle crossed her arms with a huff.  “I remember kicking your ass, Mr. brave warrior.”  The duplicate laughed and the girl scowled.  “What’s so funny?  I _did_ kick your ass.”

“No no, you did,” The clone conceded as he flew through the large double doors into the open space of Uhanima.  Shooting off high into the air he stretched and chuckled.  “Of course, I was weakened from resisting Plasmius’ weird machine and refused to fight back.  That totally counts as kicking my ass though.”  He crouched and aimed himself directly ahead of the palace.  “So, first part is a race to see how fast you are.  Here.”  He tossed a device from his pocket to the younger halfa, who continued to pout as she caught it, and tapped his wrist.  “Strap that on and it’ll keep track of your speed till you stop accelerating.”

“Why do you have this on you if you’re a duplicate?”  Though she still put the speedometer on.  She floated next to the duplicate regardless and crouched in a ready position like he did.  “It’s not a part of you, is it?”

“No, but duplicates are like quantum copies.  I’m an exact replica of Danny from when he made me, and he had that in his pocket when he did.  So, I also had it.”  He took a deep breath and stared ahead.  “From here to the next town.  Ready?”

“Set.”

“GO!”  The two shot off like bullets, air whistling in their ears as the houses and jungle blended together into a blur of color.  The Phantoms were nearly right next to each other, legs turned to tails to get more speed over the other.  They passed waterfalls, birds on the hunt, and all sorts of wildlife.  One moment, she was pushing herself at top speed, and the next Elle was nearly grazing the side of a mountain that she barely swerved to the other side of.  She wove around trees growing out of the side and gained a bit of altitude.  From where she was, just under the violet clouds, Elle saw a city on the horizon.  She also spotted the glowing ball of blue and green edging closer and closer to it.  Her cousin.  A flick of her tail and Elle was diving for the center of the town, aura steadily brightening.

She switched angles to shoot down towards the edge of the jungle and swore as the duplicate landed just a second before her.  “Damnit!  I was so close!”  She kicked up a bit of dirt and sighed, though a grin found its way to her lips.  “I’ve never gone that fast though!  Holy crap, Danny that was awesome!”  She bounced over to her cousin and punched his arm playfully, grinning when he read the screen.  “I remember our last race, and I won that one so-”

“A year later and your top speed is only 168?  Wow, I’m shocked.”  Danny ruffled Elle’s hair and she stuck her tongue out at him, annoyed.  “Alright, now for the part I wanted us away from the operations base for.  Combat.”  Danny took a couple of steps back and settled into a fighting stance.  Elle did the same, her body growing translucent and eyes trained on her opponent.  “Ready, little cous?”

“Empezar!”  Elle lunged forward and struck Danny with a jab to the jaw.  He blocked her and punched her in the ribs.  Elle phased through the punch and grabbed Danny’s arm with a pivot, flipping him into the tree behind her.  He fired an ectoblast from his eyes, knocking the younger into the air.  As he zoomed forward, Elle flung a volley of ectoplasma as well, though Danny weaved around those with practiced ease.  Once he was up, Danny blocked Elle’s roundhouse and struck her in the ribs with his elbow.  Elle planted her heel on his face and tossed an ectoblast his way before swerving back toward the center of the town.

As Danny rose out of his fall, Elle descended into the buildings and hovered just above the ground, fading from sight as her cousin circled overhead like a hawk.  Once his back was turned, she made a cord of ectoplasm and swung it up to wrap around his leg.  Danny spun around and caught the cord, yanking Elle into the air while bringing his foot down.  She grabbed his foot and twisted it, landing a punch in his gut when he flinched at the pain.  Taking her chance, Elle kicked Danny in the head and jabbed him repeatedly in the side.  A pair of fists came down on her back, sending the ghost girl toward the ground so fast that she had nearly no time to react.  Nearly.

Twin halos raced over Elle’s form milliseconds before she hit the ground and kept going.  Once she was on the other side, she transformed back and used her momentum to swing back up toward the rock, repeating the process.  Once she was above ground, the ghost girl put her latest lesson to use once more and gave Danny an extra high-speed punch to the face.  Stunned momentarily by the speed of the blow, Danny barely managed to block the following kick as Elle transformed.  He chopped her in the side and Elle phased through the blow.  When he connected a hit with his other hand she felt some bone crack.  Ignoring the black spots in her vision, she grabbed onto his arm and hit him with electrified ectoplasm.  The scream that Danny let out was short lived as he redirected the flow of energy and suddenly it was Elle who pierced the night with her voice.

Gaining enough control over the power again to let go and use her cousin as a balancing beam, Elle flipped over Danny’s head as she returned to human form once more.  This time, heat raced from her heart to her hand as pink light gathered and crackled with the electrical current she made her magic replicate.  Faster than the surprised duplicate could react, Elle slammed a handful of mystical lightning into his chest.  The scream he let out that time was one of haunting agony and Elle found herself stabbed with guilt until she realized that she couldn’t stop.  The pink lightning snapped and caught on the duplicate’s green aura, the two pulling together until a white ring appeared around Danny’s waist and split apart.  “Shit!  Danny!”  Elle dove down to catch her cousin when he fell from the sky and gently slowed their descent once she had grabbed onto his shoulders.  Strangely enough, he wasn’t wearing any clothes.  “Shit, Danny wake up!”  switching to ghost form so that she didn’t burn up too much ether in the spirit world, Elle zoomed off back towards the castle.

Halfway there, the Danny in her arms slowly opened his eyes and the rings of energy appeared once again.  His Phantom form was a lot easier to carry, and he even managed to mutter something that almost sounded like a human language.  “I didn’t know duplicates could maintain their form after taking a hit like that… I was afraid I had killed you, ya dummy.”

“Almost… something… wrong… center…”  The duplicate squirmed in Elle’s grip and the half-ghost frowned, racing back toward the palace.

* * *

 

When Hugh woke up, he was dimly aware of several things.  His head was throbbing, his throat raw, and a terrible taste assaulted his tongue.  His eyes felt heavy and his bed was less comfortable than he remembered.  He never woke to a room so brightly lit before, now that thinking was becoming easier to do.  As the fog in his head lifted, pain forced a groan out of him, hands numbly grabbing at his chest.  “Fuck.”

The pain ebbed slowly and Hugh opened his eyes in a squint.  The room around him was glaringly white and minimal.  The bed he was laying on was small, a thin blanket between him and hard white wood and attached to the wall.  Directly across were a toilet with a lid, a sink, and a mirror.  In front of him was a door, sealed shut, and across from it was a single rack with five hangars and four beige outfits.  Upon the breast of the shirts ‘subject 0115’ was written, just like what he was wearing.  “What?”   _Tongue is working, limbs are tin instead of lead and I can think in full sentences.  Progress!_

Swinging his legs over the hard bunk, Hugh gripped the edge until the world stopped spinning.  The floor of his prison cell against his feet was freezing cold, serving at least to wake him up more.  Panic setting in, Hugh stood up and stared at the mirror.  His hair was cut bald, his face was sweaty and the green ‘subject 0115’ stood out glaringly in the plain room.  Right where the pain was echoing from in his chest.  Yanking off the shirt, tossing it to the bunk, Hugh saw the green tattoo over red raw skin and screamed.

The door to his right slid open, a green wall of light being passed through by one of the men in white suits, a second standing just outside the door.  A tray of food - soup, bread roll, slice of meat and a potato - was set on his cot with a spork.  The food was all covered in a thin layer of… something green.  Hugh pondered if starving was safer than eating when a pistol was cocked and aimed at his leg.  “Eat,” the scary man said in his threatenly monotone voice.  Hugh nodded quickly and started on the soup.  His stomach rumbled its approval, spurring him to dig in.  When he finished, a green tinges glass of water was pushed in his face and Hugh drank it all down without a word.

“That tasted weird,” Hugh mumbled before his arm was grabbed.  Standing jerkily, Hugh followed the man out through the shimmering green wall, which felt like a breeze blowing him back.  Even if the heat of the sci fi weapon’s barrel wasn’t digging into his back, the simple fact of these guys’ muscle build was enough to motivate Hugh to move forward.   _Can run or they’ll both shoot me, or chase me down.  And I can’t fight cause I’m a highschooler and they’re cultist thugs._  Endless hallways and ten minutes later, the agent in front entered a code into the keypad next to one of the doors and it slid open.

Inside was a great deal of space occupied by various pieces of machinery that Hugh didn’t recognize and an area covered in cushioned mats.  Above the far wall was a large window, behind which stood three men in white.  The one in the center drew the most attention, tall, dark, broad and wearing white rimmed sunglasses instead of the standard black of the rest of the suits.  On his right was a guy in an opened lab coat with grey hair, and on his left was a dark haired man with a closed labcoat.  Hugh was shoved into the room and stumbled until he was standing on the cushioned mats.  “That’s far enough,” the left scientist muttered into a microphone, voice carried by the speakers hidden somewhere in the room.

“ _What the hell is going on?_ ”  Fed, watered, and agitated, Hugh found his voice again.  If it echoed strangely, he didn’t know or care.  “ _Where am I, who are you crazy people, and why was I kidnapped?_ ”  He shouted now, pointing vehemently at the identification number on his chest.  “ _Why is this on my chest?  I’m not old enough to get a tattoo - by the way, it’s illegal to abduct a minor in the US.  that’s the country i’m a citizen of!_ ”  He gestured to everything around him wildly, the world growing a tad brighter the angrier he got.  “ _I don’t know what kind of fucked up operation you’ve got goin on here, but when the feds find you I want you to understand that_ **_everything_ ** _here is doubtlessly 10 levels of illeg_ A!”  Hugh’s joints locked up and he crashed down to the ground, pain lancing his chest and spreading with his heartbeat.

The pain stopped after two seconds, but the ache lasted forever.  A voice rang in his ears and Hugh nearly puked.  “You are not a citizen of the United States anymore, subject 0115.  As of 3:14pm yesterday, you died partially.  You are now a hybrid of human and ectoplasmic manifestation of consciousness - or spirit.  You are therefore classified as non-human abomination and property of the GIW agency.  We have surgically implanted electrodes in your chest that shall stun you with the press of a button.  Disobedience shall be met with swift punishment.”  The voice paused when Hugh sat up, staring up at the image of the man in the middle suddenly there on the mat.  ‘Do you understand?”

Hugh nodded jerkily, wincing when it aggravated his headache, and the man vanished.  “Okay kid, this set up is simple.  You get three strikes per week, either cooperate or on the third strike you go to Frank here,” the muttering scientist pointed to his grey haired companion.  “For dissection.  Got it?”  Another nod.  “Good.  Now when you’re able, stand up  We’re gonna turn you into the best weapon possible against the ghost threat.”  A hum met Hugh’s ears and green walls rose up around the mats.

_What did I do to end up in Hell?_

* * *

 

While Tucker loaded his measurements onto a flash drive for the stealth armor and worked on his virus, Danny patrolled Amity’s skies on the lookout for any hostiles.  His ghost sense went off, streaming out a far whiter haze than normal, and he saw a disturbing sight at the police station.  An emancipated skeleton with paperthin skin and glowing red eyes hovered there, bow drawn and arrow nocked.  Three officers already had arrows in their legs, and were finding their firearms useless.  Danny split into four, shooting the next arrow out of the air with a ferocious smile.  “Hey there, nice to see some variety every now and then.  I was getting bored of the same ol blobs and enemies.”

Three Dannys went down and picked up the downed officers as gently as he could.  “I’m gonna get you to Amity General and help with getting this thing outta your leg.  I’d make us intangible to avoid the wind but I think you’ll need all the air you can get so hold on tight.”  The duplicates shot off while Danny blocked arrows and got closer fast.  A club slammed into his face and Danny wrapped himself in a bubble shield while his face fixed itself.  “Watch it!  The phans love this pretty face!”

The response was a shrill cry that cracked his bubble and made his ears bleed.  “Guys I think I found Ember’s next best friend.”  Danny condensed the shield into a baseball bat.  “If I remember my report from mythology class right, this is a Baykok.”  Danny swung his bat up to meet the ghost’s and grinned when the baykok’s club splintered.  His bat met brittle ghost bone and the ghost cried out again, though that only inspired Danny to whack it one more time.  He sucked it up into his thermos and dropped down to approach the police.  “The joys of haunted Minnesota, right?”  No one laughed, and Danny rubbed the back of his neck.  “Yeah. Well, I’ve got the baykok for now, but you guys should probably buy some ecto firearms from the Fentons, in case something like this happens again.”

 **_Casper high football field!_ **  His own voice screamed in Danny’s head.   **_A portal is about to open there, but I can’t stop it.  Go, now!_ **

Danny’s legs became a tail and he shot off into the sky, rocketing toward the school.  His aura flared up in warning and the moments between him and the field felt longer and longer when he heard practice cheers and drills.  Danny could feel it, the energy that he felt the world with pulling itself into one spirally point a few hundred feet down.

There were two players where the power coalesced, a sphere of light dividing them. Danny pushed for his power to stay within him and propel him forward just a bit faster. One of the footballers shoved his teammate away from the light just in time. Danny, two feet away, was still too late. Jock number 88 may have gotten number 4 (thank the ancients Dash didn't get that kind of power) out of the way, but he was still too close.

The air was rent open by the world beyond with a crack so loud that it could be felt for miles. A scream, sickeningly familiar, echoed across the field and everyone stopped and stared as Danny Phantom was halted by the shockwave of a portal opening. He pushed forward in the next moment, raising a dome of light over the portal and the player, thick enough to obscure them from sight. "Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Danny pulled off the now smoking black and green helmet and rolled the singed player onto his side. "Kwan, Kwan talk to me." He shook the other sophomore gently until bright red eyes blinked open. Danny let out a sigh, both in relief that Kwan was at least conscious, and in anger towards himself for being too slow.

Kwan had other thoughts on his mind. The first thing he did when he found the energy was groan in pain. He couldn't scream again yet, but he was trying to. Everything burned, from his skin to his bones. And he shouldn't have been able to feel his bones! He looked down at his hand, and the black glove had turned white. He would have inspected further, but he was too damned tired to move much. Phantom was rambling on and on about Alpha and Vulcan, but all Kwan wanted to do was sleep. Something cold, like a winter breeze, washed over his body, and Kwan passed out.

"...halfa. He's popular, so we'll need to come up with an alibi when we can get to him. For now, I'm gonna have to pull back and leave a duplicate to overshadow whoever gets his blood test results, since we can't have mom and dad finding out that someone has ectoplasm in their veins." Danny lifted the now human jock away from the portal and dropped his shield. When Tetzlaff came up to question him, he held up a hand and shook his head. "This ghost portal could be leaking ectoplasmic radiation all over the place, worse than what was already here. Plus, it's a new location for ghosts to pop up, so this school needs to be quarantined until it closes... if it closes." He said the last part to himself since he had no idea if the portal was stable enough to stay open permanently, or if it would just vanish like all the other natural portals.

Handing Kwan off to the teacher, Danny zoomed into the air, disappearing from sight against the setting sun.  He duplicated and headed home, leaving a duplicate to follow the only friendly football player that they knew of in the school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has like, ANY SUGGESTIONS on what kinda cool ghost monsters Danny should encounter, please drop like... a link or reference to a Wikipedia page on the creature so that I can look it up and see where best it'd fit in the fights. Also ghosts for Sam to interview for her campaign? I love input from you guys.
> 
> on that, who liked watching Elle show Danny that he needs more than just half capacity to take her down in a fight? I loved writing that. It was therapeutic. Poor Hugh is in for a Bad Time and Kwan's future is now greatly questionable. That's the end of Day 3


	7. Security and Learning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEARS PHANTOM PHANS! I am happy to usher in the new year with a chapter of my favorite story on here, my precious brain child, Phantom Age. 40 Something Mayor sets Sights on Teenager Boy, Local Dead Kid asks for Help, Fallen Family Rises up Again, Magickal Girl Needs new Mentor for her Manga to Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What up, i'm proud to have this as my 2018 starting point, and so I present to you, the fabled 7th chapter!

After Vlad left his meeting around dawn, he went straight to a computer to check on his spy cameras. If Daniel was doing something particularly stupid, he might have to intervene. "He's growing in power, that much is obvious to anyone watching him. Though, with that power has come recklessness. I'll have to drill a new lesson into him soon if he oversteps his boundaries." When he loaded up the feeds from his cameras, he expected to see the teen playing video games with his friends or complaining about homework that never got finished. Instead, he got a black screen. "What?" The hybrid's fingers flew over the keyboard, and he played the last recorded transmissions of his cameras.

Daniel flew around the room with a PDA in hand. With a few glances down at the device's screen, he picked tiny objects off of the ceiling, the walls, and furniture that never got moved otherwise. Finally, the camera he was getting the feed from was picked up as well. A flash of green, and nothing. "Well damn, it appears young Daniel has found me out. I suspect I'll be hearing about that soon. Corvus, remind me to upgrade the security system again." After an affirmative from his electronic servant, Vlad turned on the news while bringing up a file with his latest projects.  “I cannot allow Philip to be interfered with by that simpleton teenager, and considering his track record he’ll go for my lab first. That along with this horrendous Anti-Ecto Act to combat and I’m going to have a full plate... I also still need to find out what that Clockwork was talking about.  Damn oracles are never clear.”  While checking off his lists, Vlad caught the infamous prefix 'ecto, ' and his attention was brought to the television.

" _...scientists Jacob and Madeline Fenton were on the scene moments after it happened to ensure all students on the field were cleansed of any ectoplasmic contamination. Unfortunately, even with the intervention of local hero Danny Phantom, one player was still injured in the event. Kwan Shanliang is currently in the hospital being tested for any serious contamination. Previous cases of... _ " Vlad stopped listening and turned to his computer once more.

A portal to the Ghost Zone had opened on the football field of the town's high school. Apparently, Daniel had been there when it opened, having told the players to move just a second too late. "That cannot be a coincidence. No one could know where and when a portal would open beside the Far Frozen tribe. The only question is why he was using it to check for natural portals." A scan through the footage revealed Daniel and his friends preparing for a trip into the Zone, with Jasmine making excuses to cover their absences. The girl had improved in her lying ability, he had to admit. "Take out my cameras if you wish, Daniel. I have eyes and ears everywhere. Now then, I do believe I should pay a visit to the poor, injured student. After all, who knows what can happen to you when you're caught in the blast of a portal?"

* * *

 

Saturday mornings were usually cheerful for teenagers, involving relaxation, video games, anime and the likes.  Danny Fenton, however, found himself pacing across his ceiling, punching the air around him, and barely hushing his screams in Esperanto.  “ **I failed him!  I was too slow!  How could I have been too slow, I can fly over three hundred miles an hour!** ”  Below him, his best friends weren’t much better off.  Mostly because of him.  “ **Even at a hundred and sixty-eight miles an hour, I should’ve reached him sooner!** ”

“ **You did the best you could, Danny,** ” Tucker muttered as he saved his progress.   He rubbed a hand over his face and turned to look up at his friend.  “ **Get the heck down here so I can shove you onto your bed.** ”

“ **We need to know what we’re going to do now,** ” Sam said shortly.  As soon as Danny was close enough to the bed, she shuffled over and Tucker pounced, pinning the half ghost to his own purple sheets.  “ **Kwan is half-spirit, Hugh is in GIW custody, and we’ve got a plan to free one of them from their bad situation.  Can you** overshadow  **your mom and dad to make them fudge the results?** ”

“ **I can’t,** ” he groaned, muffled by Tucker’s sweater.  “ **They upgraded their suits to compensate for possession.  Now only ghosts using lethal force can get into their heads, and that’s if they sneak up on them.** ”

“ **Plus, we’ll need a copy of the results so that we know how to treat him in the future.** ”  Tucker rolled off of Danny’s face and settled on laying across his stomach.  “ **Messing with results that multiple scientists will get in on sounds like a dangerous idea though.  I can get my people on making sure the GIW don’t get the info indirectly, but you’re gonna have to make sure your parents don’t just up and tell them.** ”

“ **Jazz should have more luck with that than me, they listen to her sometimes.** ”  Danny sighed and rubbed his palms against his eyes.  “ **So it’s between focusing on Kwan to keep him out of the public eye as much as possible, and focusing on Hugh so that we can get him free ASAP.  Right?** ”

“ **Why can’t we do both?** ”  Tucker sat up and tapped away at his T-Phone. **“Have Jazz focus on keeping Kwan out of the public eye, maybe convince some of the ghosts around the area of the hospital to help out with that, and keep ourselves focused on Hugh for the time being?  It’d be great for divide and conquer while still prioritizing the one already in deep shit.** ”

“ **That’s brilliant Tucker!** ” Sam held up her notebook, a grin on her face once more.  “ **While Jazz and the local benevolent ghosts are keeping the press and the Fentons from getting Kwan’s situation to the GIW; Star, Paulina, Wes and I will be working on fighting the Anti-Ecto Act; you two and Elle will be extracting Hugh from the GIW custody and possibly dismantling their base.** ”

“ **Elle apparently knows how to heal living things,** ” Danny muttered, mulling the idea of splitting up their forces like that.  It left them potentially vulnerable, but it was the most efficient and likely to work option.  “ **We can use that if we need to fight, and if a ghost attacks the city when the three of us are unavailable, Mom, Dad and Jazz can all handle it.  And Valerie won’t let a chance like that pass her by either.** ”  Rings of white light spread over his body and Danny phased through Tucker, floating over to his window.  “ **I’m gonna go on patrol, maybe clear my head.** ”  

Tucker dug under Danny’s pillow and tossed a Fenton Phone at the half spirit.  “ **Take this with you, doofus.  Tell us if you need any help.** ”  Tucker settled down on the bed and yawned.  “ **Tell Sam, anyway, I’m headin back to sleep.  Also, Sam, don’t turn off the laptop.  I haven’t transferred everything onto a PDA yet.** ”

The sounds of Tucker and Sam talking about his virus and then social media sites faded from Danny’s hearing as he soared higher above the clouds.  With the wind whistling past his ears, Danny let himself get lost in his thoughts.  He didn’t want to split his focus away from either new half ghost, but if he didn’t put every bit of focus on the task with Hugh then he’d wind up getting the other teen killed for good.  “How do I get myself stuck in these situations?”

“Usually,” a familiar voice called out, “it’s because you’re far too altruistic.  Your hero complex gets you all messed up Danny.”  The hero looked down and high fived the approaching grey skinned ghost.  He had pink eyes, red hair, orange jeans and a white tee.  “What pile have you landed in this time, Danny boy?”

“Rob, dude, you have no idea how to be subtle do you?”  Danny laughed and shook his head.  “It’s actually a pretty stressful story.  You know how much can happen in three days, right?”  Rob whistled and nodded, eyes widening.  “Well, I actually need some help from the community on this one.  Can you help me gather up everyone you trust around the general hospital?  I wanna tell everyone on the roof of the little bookstore near there.”

“Sure kid, you saved my little girl from that mugger and from gettin turned into ash by Pariah.”  Rob gave a salute and backed away.  “If you o all people are actually askin for help then the world must be about to end.”  Danny groaned and Rob laughed, flying off in the direction of the hospital invisibly.  Danny shook his head and turned in the opposite direction, surveying the sleepy streets of Amity.  Most kids his age or younger were either asleep or playing video games at the moment, leaving the town with an air of peace.

_ Note to self _ , he thought only five minutes later, being crushed by a giant snake.   _ Never even  _ **_think_ ** _ that the city is peaceful. _  He converted his body into a cloud of green vapor, slipping free of the serpent’s grip.  Lightning struck him from the wings and he screamed while still in cloud form.  “Of course!  How dare I enjoy a Saturday!”  Danny split into three of himself upon turning solid, a feral grin on his face.  “I call foul, by the way, five on three isn’t exactly fair!’  He blocked lightning from all sides and returned fire through his shield.  The teen winced when three of them managed to swerve out of the way.

Three green disks appeared to catch the plasma bolts.  They shattered, but still managed to diffuse the blasts.  “Danny boy, what did I tell you about the fast ones?”  Danny raised a brow and coated his fist in energized plasma.  A green skinned man in dark clothes hovered above Danny and the snakes.  “You can’t go shooting at electric cores in a populated area, they’ll always dodge instead of blocking.”

“Come now, Henry, he’s an instinct oriented boy in a fight.”  A blue-skinned woman in a silver dress and red bonnet snapped her purse out by the straps and it turned into a mallet.  “If I was him, I’d go sharpshootin on the flying eels too.”  One of the snakes, probably insulted, lunged forward and got its head flattened.  Danny grabbed the tail of a startled snake and snapped it out the same way the woman had done with her purse, then covered it in a thick layer of ice.  “That’s the spirit!”

“Thanks, Olivia, Henry!”  Danny covered all three of himself in ice armor, sucking the two fallen snakes into his thermos.  He slammed his energized fists into the remaining snakes.  “Olivia, how’s little Owen?  Still into Star Wars?”  Getting underneath a snake after Olivia smacked it his way, Danny fired a blast bigger than himself directly up.  The serpent’s belly was burned when he let up and sucked it into the Thermos.

“He’s still the biggest fan of it, loves it when I levitate his toys for him,” she answered gleefully and kicked a snake back.  She winced when it shocked her and missed the return swing.  “And you, dear?  How are you and that girl you told me about?”

“She’s still hunting, though we came to a truce after some unpleasantness with Vlad.”  A pair of iced up Danny’s grabbed onto the wings of the serpent trying to zap Olivia and yelped when it flapped them.  “And Henry,” the main Danny turned to his other friend.  “How’s Abi?  I gave her a visit when you told me about her, made a little ice crystal spider like she wanted.”  Danny wove around the snake’s attempts to bite him and zap him like it was a dance, though he couldn’t find an opening to attack back.

“She’s feeling a lot better, and she was gushing about ‘that cute ghost boy’ for days after you did that.”  Henry wrapped a bubble shield around the snake that was chasing after Danny and grinned at the teen when he caught a dusting of green o his cheeks.  “She’d love to talk with you again, I’m sure.”

Danny sucked the snake into his thermos, then fired off another shot at the serpent that his duplicates were holding up higher in the air by its frosted over wings.  “I’ll talk with her when I get the chance, Henry.”  Danny captured the last snake and capped the thermos before turnin to both of his friends, duplicates absorbed.  “Thank you, both of you.  You didn’t have to do that, so is there anything-”

“You keep our grandkids safe, Phantom, and you give them hope.”  Henry held up his hand, shaking his head.  “This was our thank you for that.”

“We owe you plenty more than this, Danny.  Please, think nothing of it.”  Olivia ruffled his hair, and Danny beamed at them.  “Head off, kid.  We’ve got clean up covered over here.”  Danny gave Olivia a hug and then high fived Henry before shooting off.

“Thanks, guys!”  Danny flew quickly, managing to cover most of Amity near his house in a few more minutes before he moved on to the bookstore he had specified.  When he got there, a crowd of pale, dimly glowing people hovered on the roof out of human sight.  Danny touched down and rubbed the back of his head.  “Hey there everybody, I hate to do it but I’ve gotta call in a favor.  You know how I’m different from the rest of you, right?”

* * *

 

Febe had cried her eyes out, and told her family everything she could remember after they had died; her slipping through the system, getting lost day after day, all the times she had to put on fake faces to stay out of trouble in stores that she had stolen from, the junkyards she took parts from, all of it.  Her parents, in turn, described a desert that stretched out forever, palaces and temples and regular buildings all mixed together in a way that made no sense but still did make sense, ghosts that were blue and purple and white, among spirits that were all shapes, sizes, and hues.  It had taken some getting used to, having her family back around, and the building being cleaner, safer, homier.  "Should we really stay here?"  She had asked.  "Couldn't we go home?"

"Unfortunately, while we might be able to trick people here with enough effort, everyone in our hometown undoubtedly knows that we're dead love," her mother explained.  She lifted Febe up into a hug for the fifteenth time that day.  "It'd be rather hard to change a year's worth of memories on so many people."  She set Febe down and grabbed a paintbrush.  "Now, what color should we redo these in?"

"Salmon!"  Amit popped his head in through the wall, startling a scream out of Febe.  "Sorry!  But Salmon!  I'm making a surprise for Febe!"  He pulled his head back in through the wall and Febe held her heart with a sigh.

"That's going to take a lot of getting used to," she muttered.  "Along with you all not having footsteps."  She picked up a brush herself and smiled.  “For now though, let’s make the room purple!  I like purple.”  She looked down at the bucket of clear paint and watched in no mild awe as it flashed green and then turned mauve.  “That’s amazingly handy.  I wish I could do that.”

“Technically, you should be able to,” Mom mused.  “The Duat is one of many different planes of reality that one could draw energy from while living on earth.  Your father is painting up some warding symbols right now as a matter of fact.”

“Wait, you guys could do magick when you were alive and never told me?”  Febe looked up with a start, getting purple paint all over her pants.  She didn’t mind much, as her mother phased it off of her immediately.  “How come you-”

“We only learned that humans can do magick when we were over on the other side,” her mother corrected.  “It’s amazing what knowledge was hidden away in the Library of Alexandria.”  Febe’s eyes widened and her mother winked at her.  “Information is never truly lost Febe, just hidden.”

“If you want we can teach you - oh sorry, I should’ve used a door,” her father apologized, patting Febe’s back and phasing the paint off of himself.  “Nice reflexes.”

“Rising up through the floor into the room is rude Dad, you know that.”  Febe chided him.  “Aren’t you the one who said I should always knock before entering a room?”

“Yes, I’m sorry about that dear,” he kissed her on the head and handed her the brush back.  “Everything here is so … nebulous, it’s hard to remember what’s supposed to be moved around and what shouldn’t be.”  He scratched the back of his head.  “But hey, how bout we start the magick lessons with writing?  You can learn how the words correlate to the fields of energy that you-”

“Dad, please, grab a brush.”  Febe laughed and together the three of them started painting.  Looking across the street she hummed.  “Pretty fancy ride someone stole.  Not many people spring for white vans around here.”

* * *

 

“Well, of course your lightning hurt him, Faisca, he’s a spirit.  Ether and Nether go together like oil and water in a fight - never want to mix the two together unless you’re a  _ very _ specific species.”  Blitz shook her head, laying her chin on her palm.  “I’m honestly amazed that you can use Ether in the first place, and that it’s oriented toward healing and renewing life.”

“Well, you did say that one time that life draws from death and death draws from life, didn’t you?”  Elle shrugged, grabbing up some dead leaves and burning them with pink light in her hand, which shot out to cause the grass around her grow an inch.  “But if I can heal living things, then I can do the same to ghosts and spirits with my ectoplasmic powers, right?”  Elle floated off the ground and flew around Nigel.  “Like, it’s basically the same thing just with a flip of energy.”

“I don’t see why not,” Nigel shrugged, tossing a fireball back and forth between his hands.  “You can recreate most of the things we can do with your ghost powers, even your own lightning.”  He threw the fireball at Elle and sucked his teeth when she flicked it away with her own.  “I’m gonna make one you can’t just dissipate squirt, just you wait.”

“That’ll be the day,” she laughed and zoomed around Felicia, high fiving her tiny sister.  “Maybe you can use your flames like rockets to get up here on our level.”  She caught the scheming look on his face and got ready for impact when Nigel’s palms were pointed to the ground.

“You can’t manage enough force for liftoff right now, filho,” Blitz warned the ginger, patting his head.  “Besides, you’ve got to be aware of what’s under you before you go and take off like that - might burn up your shoes if you’re not careful.”  She turned her attention up to Elle once more and frowned.  “Don’t think I forgot that the point of your fight with Danny was simply to get into a battle against one of the largest spanning anti supernatural organizations mankind has ever known.  The Guys in White are dangerous, Elle.  I don’t want you going into a fight with them if you don’t have to, and it sounds like they’re trying to do this stealthily.”

“I can totally be stealthy Blitz,” Elle crossed her arms.  “I don’t even have to be invisible to do it!”

“In an area where any magick you use will be noticed?”  Felicia asked, arms crossing and breeze growing a bit harsher.  “Isn’t that a big risk to take?  You’re still like, ten.  You won’t be able to go in your ghost form, and I bet they can pick up on ether magick too.”

“Unfortunately yes,” Blitz groaned.  “They can.  Getting back stolen artifacts from them is a pain down here, and they’re not as heavily fortified at this base as they are at the American one.”  Blitz flew up and looked Elle in the eyes.  “I don’t want you fighting on this mission, Elle.  It’s not safe.”  The two stared at each other for what felt like forever, before Elle sighed and nodded.

‘Alright, yeah, I need more practice before I go sneaking around a military, I  _ guess _ .  But there’s still something I should be able to do for them once they get people out of the base.”  She held up her hands, crackling with pink that slowly turned green.  “Do you think you could teach me how to heal a ghost?”

Blitz chuckled and ruffled Elle’s hair.  “If only I could, Faisca.  I want to say that it’s similar to how you would heal an animal of our world, but ghosts are far too different for that to work.”  She shook her head.  “If you tried to heal a living thing from Earth with your ghost powers, it’d poison what you’re healing.  Just like how you shouldn’t try to heal a spirit or a ghost with your Ether, since it’ll burn them up.”  They floated back down to the ground and Elle crossed her legs into a floating lotus position.  “Ghost bodies are basically illusions.  So long as they can reach the Netherworld, the body they are controlling in our world is inconsequential and they can rebuild it on the other side.  However, if they’re injured over on that side and aren’t healing themselves, then a spirit with the power to heal other spirits would have to be the one to fix them up.”

“And the Guys in White facilities are made of some special - and thick - stuff so there’s no way to draw more magick from an outside force once you’re in there,” Nigel added.  “What you’ve got is what you’ve got.”

“Exactly.  That’s why you shouldn’t go in unless you absolutely have to - I know you and you use plenty of your power passively for the most basic things.”  Elle shrugged and rolled her eyes, unable to deny that.  “If you go somewhere and get cut off from that universal power supply of yours…”

“I’m doomed,” Elle finished dramatically.  “So I need to find someone in the Netherworld to teach me how to heal other spirits and ghosts.”  She tapped her chin, trying to think of any of the ghosts that Danny had told her about that might be healers.  When none came to mind, she kept up the appearance of thinking before lunging at Blitz and tackling her to the ground with a hug.  “GOTCHA!  I knew I could get you with a sneak attack!”

“Looks like you did, Faisca,” Blitz laughed, flopping out spread eagle on the grass.  “Felicia, Nigel, help, I’ve been attacked by a ghost!”  Laughter rang and a game of fireballs and wind currents started up.

It was interrupted by a crack in the air and a swirling mass of green mist that couldn’t quite settle on any individual shape.  A head of white hair popped out of it and Danny sighed in relief.  “Finally found you.  Um, we have a  _ bit _ of a problem and I’m not sure if you can or can’t explain what’s going on?”

* * *

 

Blitz and Elle had argued for a bit on whether or not Blitz should go with them into the Netherworld, and after all the other kids were shot down in their requests to join in, it was decided that Caleb would be in charge while Blitz accompanied Elle.  Danny watched all of this like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, a small smile gracing his lips.  “It’s uh, good to see that Elle has such an amazing person looking after her,” he commented once the portal closed itself on the Earth side of things.  In the control room, sitting in the seat Elle had found him before, was Danny’s duplicate, now wearing orange and white.  “So, diving into the … issue here.  I can’t reabsorb my duplicate anymore.”

“Pardon?”  Elle raised a brow.  She split herself in two, then three, and juggled some plasma balls between herself before recombining and letting the plasma dissipate.  “Mine are coming back fine.  Why not yours?”

“That’s the thing,” the duplicate said.  “We have no clue.  Ever since you hit me with that weird pink lightning that zapped me back to human form, I haven’t been as connected to Dan man here, and relaying thoughts takes actual effort.”  He groaned and slumped in his seat, a grin on his face.  “So inconvenient that Effort requisite.”

“I’m pretty sure a prerequisite to relaying thought is to have any thoughts to share,” Elle snorted, darting just out of reach when Danny reached for her.  Danny still grabbed her but Elle wiggled free.  “But uh, yeah, I’m not sure how that could have anything to do with me.”

“It happened right after Elle hit you with her ethereal lightning, yes?”  Blitz spoke up, staring at the duplicate.  After a nod, she tapped his chest where his heart rested.  “Can duplicates standardly turn back into their human forms?”

“Plasmius can do it, but I never managed to before.”  Danny admitted with a shrug.  “It’d come in real handy at school, but whenever I try to get a duplicate to go human, they just poof into ectoplasm and I reabsorb them.”

“Try returning to human form now, both of you.  I have an idea.”  Both Dannys turned back into Fenton and Blitz raised a brow.  Her eyes turned bright pink and she looked between the two of them repeatedly for a moment.  “I see.  You’re not a duplicate anymore.  When Elle hit you with her Ether, it charged you with life force enough to balance out the spiritual energy within you.  And since you’re already physically based off of a Human Spirit hybrid, Elle’s energy simply filled in the blank and brought you to life.”

“Huh?”  Came both boys’ intelligent response.

“That’s right!  You said Ether is the essence of life, but all of Danny’s powers are focused on Death.  So I basically jump-started his soul?”  Elle tilted her head until her eyes were vertical, and Danny felt a shiver run up his spine.  “So now he’s his own person, right!”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” the unnamed doppelganger shrugged.  “Though, you seem real happy to be a mom at age 10.”  Elle’s head snapped back into proper alignment - the long way - and Danny gawked at him.  “What?  Danny provided the body, you provided the soul.  That kinda means I’m your kid, doesn’t it?   _ Dad _ ?”  He shot finger guns in Danny’s direction and laughed at his mortified groan.

“That reminds me, in Elle’s story she never actually mentioned this to you; you realize you’re her father genetically speaking, right?”  Blitz was very obvious about how much joy she was taking in Danny’s shock.  “That’s how homunculi and clones work, dear.”

“So I’m a father of two and one of them was with my daughter.”  Danny flew over to a wall and started hitting his head against it.  “Excuse me while I erase this from my memory that hard way.”

“I think I’m gonna go by James, by the way,” the doppelganger shouted over Elle’s laughter.  “Makes things easier than using something Daniel related.  Speaking of names,” he added on, pulling Danny over with a bit of telekinesis.  “I think we should stop calling half spirits halfas.  Poindexter came up with it Dad, not one of us.   _ Poindexter! _  It’s lame.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Danny groaned, burying his face in his hands.  “This is already ridiculous enough.”

“You’re just being dramatic,” James countered, letting go.  “I say we should call ourselves something cool.  How bout…”

“Ghouls?”  Elle offered.

“Zombies?”  Danny teased.  “We’re the living dead after all.”

“Vampires?  No, we’re not parasites,” Elle shook her head.

“Wraiths?”  James threw out.  “Wraiths sounds hella cool.”

“Very true,” the others agreed, even Blitz.

Danny rubbed the back of his head, looking over to Blitz.  “So, are we gonna have a ‘visitation on weekends’ deal here or….”

“Oh no, you live in a house with Hunters in the most dangerous town in your country,” Blitz scoffed.  “Are you crazy?”

“Possibly.”

“You mean probably,” Elle corrected.  “I’m gonna stay with Blitz more often than not, Danny.  But I  _ will _ come and visit sometimes.  But first I need to like, find a teacher for the whole healing other ghosts thing.”

“That… that’d be useful for when we bust Hugh out.  No doubt his ghost form is just as wrecked as his human form,” Danny nodded to himself.  “Yeah, you should definitely learn how to heal spirits.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's start this year off right with some feedback so I know peopleare reading this and want more of it, can i get a comment? Woo Ha!


	8. Hellish Training Regimen, Creepy Hospital Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well holy shit, this year is starting off great cause that's a whole 2 chapters out all at once! Undead Child Brutalized By Balls, Local Jock Visited by Mayor in Hospital, Jock Power Couple Discuss Distrust

The greatest source of pride for Hugh had always been his intelligence.  Top of his class in civics and English, president of the debate club, etcetera.  Hugh was aware of his limitations in a situation given a minute to assess them, and he was commonly one to stick to his guns.  Being put into a cage of unknown light, learning that ghosts are real, and having a shock collar implanted in your chest are the kinds of things that smack those guns out of one’s hands, however.  He couldn’t be blamed for what he did.

After Hugh figured out what it was, exactly, that triggered his transformation he was made to learn how to fly.  Learning under duress, ie. spikes all over the floor, made a fast learner into an even faster one.  It only took about ten minutes for Hugh to get more than a foot into the air, and he was flying around the perimeter of his training cage for about a minute before the dodgeballs came out.  If he remembered Dr. Grey’s words correctly, they were ‘the balls will stop pelting you when you become invisible.’  Then bright green rubber balls were being shot at him from cannons.  Hugh’s first thought after getting smacked in the face was that he was in Hell.  The next was  _ ow, that hurt. _

He ducked and jumped out of the way of the balls as fast as he could, wishing for all the world that he could just disappear.  He could feel Grey’s eyes on him, burning a hole in his head, and the desire to fade got ten times stronger when he finally registered it.  The world lost color and all the warm ones were replaced with muted purples, blues, and greens.  Hugh flew to the top of the cage and eyed the cannons cautiously.  “Very good, Hugbert, you’re still a fast learner I see.”  Hugh bristled and glared balefully at the scientist.  “Turn visible again, we’re moving onto the next basic ability that all ectoplasmic entities have.”  Hugh obliged and lowered himself back down near the center of the cube.  The shift back to real colors had him blinking rapidly.  “The last ability is the one I’m sure you’ve been thinking about the most; intangibility.  Shifting from one plane of physical existence to another without fully teleporting to the afterlife.”  That sounded useful for a handful of things, none of which Hugh could imagine he was going to be allowed to do.

“The cannons are locked onto your ectosignature this time, basically your ghostly brainwave pattern, and the shooting will not stop until you’ve phased through 5 projectiles.”   _  This is Hell, and Grey up there is demon seeing my punishment out.  If I get the chance, I’m going to decapitate the bastard.  _  Hugh couldn’t even count how much time passed after that, the balls moving a lot faster than before.  Most of them hit, and turning invisible didn’t help at all.  All of the balls launched at him at once, nowhere to dodge, and he curled up in a ball in the air.    _ Move, move, move move MOVE!  _  Hugh moved, though not in the way he was used to moving.  The balls passed through him, and he didn’t feel any wind.  His sweat fell to the mats, but he couldn’t see that, couldn’t hear the cannons going off together, could feel anything except that he was falling.  Even stationary in the air, the air passed right through him instead of into his lungs and Hugh was suffocating, reeling back and trying to find purchase on something, anything.

Hugh’s shoulder rammed into a wall hard as steel and he fell to the ground, solid again.  Next came the pain, burning his insides and freezing him in place like a statue for three seconds that felt like hours.  “Hughbert, Hughbert, Hughbert,” Grey clicked his tongue through the speakers.  “That’s strike one.  Here I thought you were a fast learner, too.  Perhaps the ectoplasm is impeding the learning centers of your brain, locking you into a state of mental stasis when you transform…”

“No!  No, it’s the… fight or flight.”  Hugh struggled to his feet, heat rushing over his body from his core and highlighting every bruise and ache that he accumulated over the past hour.  “Won’t happen again,” he ground out through grit teeth.

“Hm, see that it doesn’t.”  Dr. Grey scratched something down on his notepad and moved to the console just beyond Hugh’s sight.  “Behind you is a water bottle with a mix of water and ectoplasm in it to revitalize both parts of your system.  Drink it, morph back.  We still have more training to do.”  Hugh looked behind him and grabbed at the white metal cylinder.  Once he downed the odd tasting liquid he felt the bundle of cold in his chest hum and spread out, healing his injuries and soothing his pain.    _This is giving me some very unhealthy ideas about death._  “Next we’re going to do drills that combine all three of those basic skills.  If you learn as fast as you have been, you might even make it to the next power before you head back for rest.”    _Then again, healthy thoughts are already becoming scarce._

Hugh clung to his inner sarcasm for the sanity that it was worth and took a breath that he apparently didn’t need.  “Time for more Hell, then.”

* * *

 

The hospital room was filled with flowers and get well cards, and Kwan wondered if his friends had those on hand.  It had only been, what, a day or three?  According to the Fentons, he should filter out the ectoplasm in his system after a while, and until then they wanted him in the hospital and under surveillance.  His parents and sisters had come in to see him, crying and saying something about sueing Phantom and the school.  It was hard to understand him past his mom’s crying and the teen and little girl clinging to him.  Kwan really hoped his dad didn’t sue the school over this, now that he thought about it.   _ It’s not anyone’s fault… I just wish Phantom could explain that whole color inversion thing to me. _  Kwan had considered telling the Fentons, but considering their policies on ghosts, and how dead he had felt at that moment, he thought it best to keep this to himself.

There was a knock on the door, and the jock smiled.  Dash, Paulina, and Valerie all came to see him earlier.  Dash had said he’d be back later, but the blond had left only half an hour ago.  “Come in.  Not swamped by work today, Val?”  The shorter teen had been the first to leave, having some packing to do and all.

Strangely enough, it was neither a physically flawless Latina, a strong headed African American, or hard-headed blond that entered the room.  Instead, the mayor walked into the room, closed the door, and looked down at Kwan with a smile.  “Unfortunately, she might be.  How are you holding up, Mr. Shanliang?”  Vlad pulled up a chair and sat down with his hands folded in his lap.  A concerned frown marred his lips.  “I know personally how it can feel after being exposed to extreme doses of ectoplasmic radiation.  Thankfully, you don’t seem to have developed any ecto-acne.”

Kwan blinked owlishly at Mayor Masters for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.  “I, um.  I’m feeling better than I was a couple of days ago.”  That was an understatement.  Feeling like he was on fire and frozen at the same time was the worst pain Kwan had ever experienced, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  “The doctors say I should be ok when the ectoplasm filters out of my system.  How long do you think that might take, Mayor Masters?”  Maybe he knew something more about it, being the only other recorded case of being exposed to an opening ghost portal.  

The mayor looked down at Kwan with a neutral face.  His eyes roved over the teen’s face as though searching for something before his eyebrow twitched up.  Kwan wasn’t sure how good a thing it was, but Mr. Masters had found what he was looking for.  “Forever, actually.  Your body will continue to produce ectoplasm as it is currently, though your body seems to be responding to it far better than mine did.”  Kwan felt his mouth open a bit in confusion and his foot began tapping against the end of his bed as he tried to understand what the mayor was saying.  “Tell me, Mr. Shanliang, have you ever considered the possibility that someone could be alive, yet dead, at the same time?”

“Um,” Kwan looked around the room, eyes landing on his flowers and cards.  “I guess you don’t mean ghosts, so no.  It’s not really possible to be Schrodinger's boy, is it?”  Other than zombies and vampires and other occult, supernatural, or otherwise ridiculous things that fell under such a category, Kwan couldn’t think of anything else.  A glance to Mr. Masters said that he was closer than he wanted to be to the truth.  “The Fentons-”

“Don’t know everything dear boy.  After all, neither was present during my own treatment for ectoplasmic radiation poisoning and ecto acne.  The doctors who were, you don't want here.  Other than myself, of course."  Masters moved to the window and closed the blinds.  "Can you imagine what would happen if they were to find out that your body is permanently contaminated with ectoplasmic radiation?"

"They'd try to figure out why right?"  Kwan was working very hard on skating around a scarier version of that statement.  "The Fentons, the doctors, they'd all try to find out what's causing my body to keep making ectoplasm and then undo it, right?"  Master let out a sigh and a chuckle, shaking his head.

"Dear boy, they would cut you open to do so.  As far as most people are concerned, if you've been touched so deeply by the other world that you've become like it's residents, you are one of the aliens they've been fighting.  If Jack or Maddie Fenton were to find out that you were producing ectoplasm, you'd be regarded much like how a ghost would be."  Masters sat down in the chair once again, making eye contact that Kwan couldn't bring himself to break.  "So, they cut you open, take samples of every organ in your body, and find it fascinating when those organs slowly begin to regenerate."

That was the last thing that the mayor had said before Kwan felt a rush of panic and something like cold fire rush through his body.  There was a flash of light, brighter than all the electrical ones, and his entire body felt... strange.  Tingly.  He looked down at his hands and yelped when he saw that his skin was not only tingly but also purple.  A hand slapped over his mouth and muffled the sound, and Kwan dared to look up at the gray-haired man that was currently looking at him like a prized racecar.

"Well, that's quite the interesting development.  I didn't expect you to be able to manifest your other form until at least a week had passed.  You'll need plenty to eat, or else you'll pass out in moments.  Concentrate on the warmth in your chest, where you know that your heart should be."  Masters' voice was calm, collected, and it made Kwan's mind race with visions of  _ the man in scrubs holding a scalpel over some unlucky kid's body. _  Shaking those thoughts away, the jock did as told and tried to find the warmth inside of him.  The scariest thing in that moment - or tied for it, as everything was scaring the piss out of him - was that he could feel his heart beating, but it was slower than it had ever been in his life.  It was like he was slipping into a coma!  He concentrated on what it should have felt like and felt that same staticy cold wash over him again.  A check and Kwan saw that his skin was back to normal.  The athletic teen let out a sigh and fell back into his pillow with relief and a touch of exhaustion.

“Red eyes, purple skin, and had you more energy you’d likely be in an inverted form of your school uniform, I imagine.”  Masters was muttering to himself now.  A few checks of Kwan’s monitoring equipment and the mayor stood from his chair.  “Well, I can help you gain a bit more control over all of that, young man.  All you have to do is swear not to mention this to anyone, and call me to establish a schedule of when you’ll be visiting me to learn more once you’re out of the hospital.”

“Wait, Mr. Masters!”  Kwan sat up and winced.  The beginnings of a headache throbbed in the back of his skull.  “What am I?  Am I some kinda ghost mutant or something?”  Kwan didn’t want to die so young!  He had a life to live, things to do!  He was going contribute something to science, have a family, grow up!  He couldn’t be dead so early in life.  It just wasn’t right!  “I’m… my heart is still beating, so I’m still alive right?”

Masters looked down at Kwan and gave him a smile that chilled the footballer to the bone.  Blue eyes became pure red.  “Dear boy, you are half ghost.  Still alive, technically, but also not.  You’re somewhere in the middle, walking along the edge of existence.  Just like myself and a few others.”  The red glow faded, and Kwan rubbed the goosebumps away from his arms.  “I understand it if my aura makes you somewhat uneasy, dear boy.  Having to fend off hostile ghosts back in Wisconsin had me developing a more intimidating aura than certain others.  I try to keep it to a level that most humans can’t feel, but young ghosts can be particularly sensitive to stronger auras.”

“So,” Kwan tapped his fingers against his leg quietly and kept his gaze on the mayor’s face.  “So, I’m half dead, you’re also half dead, you want to teach me how to control the weird ghost stuff that’s definitely going to start popping up for me, and I can’t trust the Fentons.  Did I get all that, sir?”  Vlad nodded, and Kwan sighed.  “I’ll have to think about that offer to train me, sir, this is a lot to process.”

“Of course, dear boy!”  Vlad nodded and waved off the concern he could hear in Kwan’s voice.  “Not to worry!  I’m perfectly capable of waiting for your response.  I’ll return here within the week to speak with you again, and I’ll expect you to have your answer ready by then.”  Vlad turned and closed the door with a smile.  “Rest well and get better soon superstar.”  For several moments, the only sound in the room was Kwan’s breathing and the beep of his heart monitor.

Once he couldn’t hear the man’s footsteps or feel that discomforting presence anymore, Kwan relaxed from his toes to his head and groaned.  “Fuck, what am I supposed to do?”  Reaching over to the counter, Kwan grabbed his cellphone and started dialing Dash.  He paused, considered that signals could be tapped into, and sent him a text instead.   **Babe, need you in the hospital room.  Asap.**

* * *

 

Once Dash had gotten there and the nurses and doctors cleared out of the room once more, Kwan told him everything.  The more he spoke, the more the lights and equipment flickered until Dash wrapped a comforting arm around Kwan’s shoulders.  When he was done talking, Kwan felt as though he had just danced his entire routine while a waterfall beat down on him.  He blew out some air and let the tension in his shoulders bleed away.  “So yeah, that’s what’s happening and I’m not sure what to do.”

The two sat in near silence for a while, Dash tapping a finger against Kwan’s thigh while the hospitalized teen hit the frame of the bed with his foot.  “Well,” the blond finally said, staring at the closed door.  “I’m not sure how much you can trust the mayor here.”  Kwan raised a brow but said nothing, letting Dash work through his words in his head.  “I mean, you said the first time he offered, he said not to tell anyone, right?”  A nod from Kwan and the blond swung a hand out in the direction of the small TV that Kwan had turned off when he woke up.  “You’re a smart guy, with like, the best grades out of everyone on the team.  You don’t need a reminder to keep something like this a secret from everyone you don’t trust.  But if he said tell  _ nobody _ then he’s tryna isolate you.  That ain’t good in a situation like this.  We need to tell Star.”

“Star will find out anyway, you know that.”  Kwan rolled his eyes and picked at the blanket of his hospital bed.  “And he did say there are more than just he and I with this condition.  The others might frequent his place.  Plus, he could just be trying to keep people like the Guys in White from finding out about him.  That’s why I didn’t say anything over the phone.”  Kwan shuddered at the thought of what  _ those _ guys might do to him if they found out.

“Ok, that thing about the Men in Black ripoffs is a good point, but if there were gonna be other half ghosts at his place, he shoulda mentioned ‘em.”  Dash’s frown deepened and he rose up to his feet to begin pacing in front of Kwan’s bed.  “And that thing about his aura being a self-defense thing seems like bull to me.”  Kwan raised a brow at him and Dash huffed out a breath.  “The dude’s ancient, he’s been at this whole half-blood thing for at least as long as me and you have been alive.  No way in hell he doesn’t have total control over his ghost self.  He mighta been doin that to intimidate you.  Get you scared of him so that he can make you feel great about bein behind him instead of in his way.”

Kwan nodded and sighed, not wanting to believe that Masters, their mayor, was untrustworthy with that kind of power.  Political power, power over a company as far reaching as Dalv co, and supernatural power that could probably wipe cities off the map considering what some ghosts could do.  He let out another breath, forcing the muscles in his body to relax again, and held his arms out toward Dash.  The blond took the silent signal and came over to the bed, wrapping his arms around Kwan and the two settled on their sides with their legs tangled up and foreheads pressed against each other.  “I think…” he said after several minutes of listening to Dash breathe and the footsteps that would pass outside of his room.  “I think I know what I wanna do.  I’m gonna accept his offer of training, so that I can figure out these abilities without having to worry about falling through the floor and then turning solid.”  Dash nipped his nose and Kwan furrowed his brows.  “Sorry, no gorey thoughts while cuddling.”

“‘S alright, just don’t think too hard on the bad parts.  That’s what Valerie is for.”  Dash snickered when Kwan jabbed a finger in his side.  “What?”

“Valerie is a dear friend and we are  _ not _ going to let her worry alone about me.”  Kwan shook his head, a smile creeping up on him.  “Anyway, I’m not going to sign any contracts, and since I’m a minor it wouldn’t matter even if I did.  I’ll find out who the other half ghosts are and keep you - and probably Val too - in the loop about what’s happening.  If things start to go south, go to the Fentons and ask them to train you in how to use their long-range weapons.”

“Already know how to use a gun, Kwan.”  Dash rolled his eyes.  “Dad n I go hunting every june, remember?”

“Yeah, but regular guns and ectoguns are probably different from each other Dash.”  Kwan hummed and drummed his fingers against Dash’s leg.  “Maybe you could either buy or lease some of their weapons, be prepared and all.”  Dash nodded and grinned.

“I’ll ask for all that in a couple of days then, so I can be prepared ahead of time.  No one fucks with my man but me!”  Kwan felt the heat rising to his cheeks and groaned as he pressed his face into Dash’s shoulder.  “Val will probably want to get in on that too, she seemed pretty into figuring out how to melt down that one ghost dog.”

“Yeah, though we should make sure she’s got her hate boner for phantom in check first.”  He felt Dash snort at that and chuckled.  “Yeah, I wasn’t joking when I said that Val was hating on Phantom  _ and _ the dog.  And with all this half ghost stuff in mind, I’m worried that Wes might be right.”  The only reason no one believed him was because a ghost couldn’t possibly be alive.  If that wasn’t true, then all of his arguments and stalker worthy evidence made perfect sense.

“Then we gotta get Wes to shut up before the Guys in White creeps find out about it and grab Fenton.”  Dash cracked his knuckles on both hands, realization and horror dawning on his features when Kwan looked up.  “Shit, no wonder Phantom said that shit to me.”

“Hey.”  Kwan twined his fingers with Dash’s, getting the blond to look him in the eyes.  “Remember what I said.  He had no right to rag on you like that.  You’re changing as a person, and if Danny  _ is _ Phantom, I’m going to break his jaw.”  He held up his free hand to Dash’s mouth, silencing his protests.  “You can’t convince me not to either.”

Dash’s brows furrowed and he frowned at Kwan in concern before pulling the other closer for a kiss.  “You’re cute when you’re bein overprotective, ya know that?”  Kwan hid his face again, though Dash could feel him smiling.  “I should probably get outta this bed before a nurse comes in n yells at us.”  Kwan nodded, but Dash could feel the other’s arms wrap around him once again.  “Later then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know i sound like i'm really reaching but like, there's only one (1) comment on this whole fic and that just feels... discouraing. Please, if you have anything to say about this fic, please leave your comment in the comment section below. you don't have to be a member to comment.


	9. Knowledge and Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small Children Search the Void for Teacher, Local Super Hero Kidnapped by his own Children, Local Vigilantes Finally Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a hell of a long time coming, hasn't it? Thanks to you all who have stuck with me though the dips in creativity and motivation and shit. This is the weekend I fuckin write this stuff and I mean it this time!

Once Blitz had gone back home to tend to her other children, James opened up a portal for Danny to head back to Amity and get back to his hero thing.  “Alright squirt, let’s head off to somewhere we can find a teacher.” Another rift opened up and James gave Elle a shove through. When he crossed through himself, he laughed and ducked a ball of ectogoop.  “Had to make sure you got through quick, Elle. I can’t keep those open forever and I’ve made quite a few portals one after the other today.”

Elle rolled her eyes and looked around.  “This is the Minnesota part of the Netherworld, isn’t it?”  If she squinted, Elle could make out Skulker’s dumb island a few miles in the distance.  “Why are we here instead of somewhere closer to where I live?” As she asked, Elle floated closer to James and shot some goop into his face.  The splatter got a little on her suit, but more of it got into his hair, drawing giggles out of the ghost girl.

“Ha, ha,” James flicked as much of it as he could out of his face, and chuckled.  “Nice come back squirt. But we’re in Minnesota cause that’s what Dan Man has mapped out.  I figure it’s better to ask around with ghosts we’re friends with for a teacher than asking randos we have no history with, ya know?”  From the watch on James’ watch came a holographic display of Danny’s updated Netherworld map. “Beth might know, she’s friendly enough.”  He found the door on the map and flew toward it.

“I almost can’t believe Danny has friends in here besides Frostbite and Princess Dora,” Elle said, following behind James with a smile.  “So you’ve been spending most of your time here in the Netherworld reading at the palace right?”

“That and monitoring signs of a portal opening up on the other side in populated areas, yeah,” James said, weaving around an asteroid with a grin.  “I learned how to control free-floating ectoplasm and mold it into different constructs.” James held out his hand and the green atmosphere around them sank into his palm, darkening and folding into a fluid shape.  It solidified and he held up a pistol made of glowing iron. “Tada!”

“Why a gun?”  Elle eyed the construct warily, unsure if James knew how those worked.  “You’re a spirit, you  _ are _ a gun.”

“Please, I’m an anti-tank rifle,” James snorted, letting the pistol dissipate.  “I know firearms like the back of my hand, the Fentons raised D and J to be able to disassemble, reassemble, and fire any projectile weapon against any threat.  That was the first thing I figured out when hunting down last night’s dinner in the forest. Here we are.” James knocked on a door decorated with various bird designs.  “Beth, you there?”

The door swung in on itself, a tall girl with green skin sat upon a dark brown bird and smiled at them.  She wore an open coat covered in feathers on the outside and a thick glove that covered her entire right forearm.  “Danny! It’s been way too long! You finally changed your outfit I see.” She lunged and dragged James into a tight hug.  “And who’s this cutie with your logo on her merch?” Beth gently shoved James aside and held her left hand out to Elle. “I’m Beth, the bird keeper.  This is my pidgeot Tweety.”

“I’m Elle, this is James,”  Elle shook the offered hand and pointed to her companion.  “We’re Danny’s kids.”

“Why did you say it like that?”  James groaned. “You make it sound like we came from the future or he went into the past or something.”  He flew over to Beth either a grimace or a smile, even James couldn’t tell what he was going for. “Genetically speaking, we are, technically, the children but there was a lot of accidental magick and science fiction bs involved in the both of us.”  Beth stared at them quietly and Elle couldn’t stop laughing. “We’re here to ask if you know how to heal other ghosts. Elle here needs training, a special mission’s gonna go down soon.”

“I haven’t a clue sweetie,” Beth said, rubbing her chin.  “I know that Kitty has healing powers though, she’s a life core.”  Beth nodded to herself and pointed her thumb in the general direction of the biker woman’s lair.  “She’s always patchin Johnny up after Danny wrecks him in a fight. Speaking of, I expect an explanation for how you two are his kids at some point.”

“Like he said, time travel might be involved,” Elle said cheerily.  She laughed when James tucked her under his arm. “What? Technically it does!”

“Not the part she’s asking about,” James said, flashing a smile to match Beth’s.  “I’ll see ya later Beth, thanks. And I promise, you’ll get a better explanation from us when we have Danny with us.”  Once they were outside of Beth’s lair and a fair few yards away, James gave Elle a light shake before she could get away from him.  “Why did you make it look like that, ya dork? Do you even know how kids are usually born?”

“Yeah, Vlad had his Maddie hologram explain it to me.  When-” Elle snorted and licked the hand covering her mouth.  ‘You shoulda kept the gloves.” She slipped out of the other’s grip and flew away.  “Johnny and Kitty are the ones with the joint lair right? I know where that is! C’mon!”  Elle shot off and James shook his head, zooming after her. “So you shot and cooked your own dinner?  I thought you had Danny’s memories, not Skulker’s.”

“Dad’s a pretty ok cook,’ James said, snapping a gun into existence and pulling it apart.  “I just have a reason to cook because Jazz isn’t here. And some of your magick rubbed your like, personality or whatever into me I guess, cause I know that Dan man wouldn’t ever actually kill some random wildlife after a thousand and ten lectures from Sam.”  He chuckled, converting the gun parts into a plastic bouquet that James held out to Elle. “Happy early mothers day.”

“Oh no, my son’s an absolute doofus,” Elle lamented, hand over her head as though she were dying.  “Whatever shall I do?” Elle perked up and bounced in the air, a wicked grin on her face. “Johnny and Kitty will eat this up!”

“Oh ancients no, please, don’t tell them.”  James let his bouquet disintegrate itself and tackled Elle into an asteroid.  “News of us will spread like wildfire across the Minnesota section. Please, just don’t.”  Elle grinned and James wiggled his fingers, tickling the girl. “You may have a few months of physical age on me, but I still have 14 years of sibling fight tactics on my side.”  When Elle started kicking him through the laughter, James turned all but his hands intangible.

Elle laughed and laughed until a burst of energy followed her voice, pushing James back and propelling the asteroid away from her.  “Whoa,” she said, calming away the giggles. “Guess I can do the Wail too!” Once she could speak normally, Elle flew over to check on James and make sure he wasn’t hurt too bad. “You ok?  If not you sorta deserve it for nearly tickling me to full death.” When she caught up with him, James looked different from before and Elle wondered if it was from her Wail. “James?”

James righted himself and stretched, a wide smile on his face.  “Man, that felt  _ awesome _ !  I think your healing powers are pretty strong there, champ, you just made me feel like ten times better.”  James looked himself over and that grin fell to a flat line. “Why is my hand grey?” He flicked a mirror into view and stared at orange eyes instead of green, grey skin all over, and when he opened his mouth, he could’ve sworn his canines were shorter last he checked.  “Ok then, guess your healing powers struck some sorta… ectosignature enhancement on me or something? Mixed with a frequency that doesn’t exactly match mine, it might’ve changed mine to be more unique than a simple copy of Dad’s layered with new knowledge.” The mirror vanished and James closed his eyes, concentrating.

“What are you…” Elle asked after half a minute of silence.

“It took longer than it should’ve to connect up with Dad’s mind, especially since he’s in Phantom form,” James said, crossing his arms.  “My ectosignature is definitely changed. I wonder if that changes my power set at all?” Orange flames jumped to his fingertips and James stared at them for a long stretch of silence.  Before Elle could finish waving a hand in his face, James grabbed it and closed his eyes.  _ Life, a craving for all things that make it up, dead too young, not ready to die, can’t move on until life has been lived to the fullest, so many places to visit, cultures to discover, languages to learn, so much life to live, to live with  _ **_him._ **  James’ flames engulfed him and his sister in an instant, not burned up but becoming the flame.  The fire that burned through the emerald sky around everything that stood before it and stopping only when he found the border of the pull that guided him.  The fire swirled into a sphere and dissipated, leaving James and Elle behind. “Whoa.”

“Do that again without warning me and I will shoot you with lightning again,” Elle said, glaring at James with green spread all over her face.  She turned and held her stomach, curled up in a ball for a moment. Once the world stopped spinning, both literally and metaphorically, Elle looked up at the purple condo with a garage large enough to hold a family in it that she knew as Johnny and Kitty’s lair.  “Didn’t know you could teleport like that.”

“I’m a couple days old,” James said, “there’s a lot we don’t know I can or can’t do.”  James floated up to the door of the condo and knocked three times. “Johnny, Kitty, can we talk to you?  It’s non-violent.” What sounded like a chain hitting linoleum came from behind the door before it opened up to the sight of an older teen with greasy blond hair.  Johnny quirked a brow and Elle waved.

“Sup squirts?”  Johnny looked over at Elle and pointed at James.  “Who’s this? Another one like you?” For a moment, James felt panic swell up in his chest at the thought of even Johnny being aware that new half spirits were popping up.  He squashed it down a moment later and realized that Johnny meant ‘another failed clone’ like Elle. She must have shaken her head as Johnny wrapped James up with one arm and dragged his knuckles over the young wraith’s scalp.  “So who’re you, kid? Some fanboy who came back looking like his precious hero?”

“This is James, he’s a half spirit like me and Danny,” Elle explained, watching Johnny’s grip slacken almost immediately.  James wiggled free and wrapped his arms around Johnny’s neck himself. “Can we like, come in? We’ve got more to ask, and we came to ask Kitty.”

“Kitten,” Johnny said into the lair, unbothered by James’ lax hold.  “Ellie is here with some new punk like her and the kid!” Johnny flew back into the lair, plucking James off of him and dropping him on the nearest couch.  Elle flew in after them and was pulled into a tight hug by thin pale arms.

“Oh Ellie, it’s been too long since you visited!  How’s Guatemala? Are you eating alright? When did you last sleep?”  The questions came faster than Elle could shoot an ectobolt and without pause.  James’ laughter was just as continuous.

“It’s not funny James!  Kitty, I’m fine. I’m in Brazil now and I’m pretty sure I’ve been adopted by an amazing woman who keeps up with all the rest already.”  Wiggling her arms free, Elle returned the hug with a wide smile. “And how have  _ you _ been?  Finally gone to Paris or are you guys afraid of the French werewolves?”  Elle wiggled her fingers and laughed, while James perked up. “Yes, werewolves are a thing, James.  The French ones are harmless though.”

“Paris was amazing!  We had so much fun there!”  Kitty’s eyes brightened as she got lost in reminiscence for a moment, though her focus came back to Elle soon and she patted the younger on the head.  “Good for you getting a mom so quick! I’m happy you’ve got a home over on earth, Ellie. Now,” Kitty said, pointing a nail at James with narrowed eyes.  “Who are you and why are you here with Ellie? And to follow up why are you a pallet swap on Danny?” She waved a hand over James and sucked on teeth. “Wavelengths are all wrong to be him.”

“I’m James, Danny made a duplicate and Elle accidentally brought me fully to life.”  James held up a hand when Johnny opened his mouth. “Turns out Elle is a life core and an op to rescue a captured and new Wraith - what we’re calling half spirits now - from the GIW is being planned.”  Elle gave him a strange look but James ignored her. “ Elle wants to help and-”

“Think you can teach me how to be a battle medic?”  Elle said jumping into Kitty's face and holding out her hand.  “ I can heal human pretty easy with Blitz’s training but she can't teach me how to heal spirits and ghosts.”   Elle turned her biggest puppy dog eyes on Kitty with a drawn-out please.

Kitty cooed and patted Elle’s head.  “I would if I could, sweety,” Kitty said, “but I’m not exactly teacher material.”  Kitty shrugged and Elle pouted. “The Ghostwriter loves to teach! I saw that he recently got outta jail after breaking the solstice truce, so he might help you guys.”  James groaned, and Johnny put him in a headlock.

“Kitty,” James said, leaning on Johnny instead of pulling out of the lock.  “Danny is the reason GW got put in ail. I can’t see, like, any reason for him to help us.”  The blond’s knuckles rubbed against James’ scalp and the wraith elbowed him in the gut. “Elle and Danny both can kick your ass, Johnny, what makes you think I can’t?”  The guys laughed and Johnny pulled James further back into the lair.

“Careful Kitty, James might steal your boyfriend away,” Elle laughed.  “So, this Ghostwriter guy is the best chance I have at learning how to heal ghosts quickly?”

“Afraid so, sweety,” Kitty said, calling up a cup for her and Elle, a teapot floating over and pour into both of their cups a steaming brown liquid.  “Maybe if you give him those puppy dog eyes and ask real nice he’ll help without throwing a knife at Jimmy here.” Kitty sipped her drink and Elle followed suit, humming at the sweet taste.  “I visit him pretty often,” Kitty said, handing James a bottle of juice when he reached out from his wrestling match with Johnny. “He has the best books, and from what I got he was teaching Danny a lesson for not caring that he destroyed his recently finished Christmas poem.  So an apology from him should clear it all up.”

“Wow, Danny’s an asshole sometimes,” Elle said, downing half of her tea and smiling at the taste.  “This is delicious, by the way. So, we grab the dork, drag him with us to make up with the Ghost Writer, and hope he gives me lessons?”

“That’d be about it, yeah,” Kitty said.  She flicked her hand at Johnny and James and the two were telekinetically forced apart.  “That’s enough play time boys, I don’t want my stuff getting broken again.”

“We were bein careful,” James said, crossing his arms with a small huff.  “Though, I guess spooky over there is just itching to get something done wrong.”  James glared at Johnny’s shadow and the thing grinned at him. “Demon creature.” A tongue was stuck out at him, and James responded in kind.  Eventually, he looked up at Elle and grinned. “I can cover grabbing dad, by the way. I’ve been spending a bit of time figuring portals out so…”  Orange fire crackled at his fingertips and James’ eyes widened. “Well, didn’t expect to have my own aesthetic already but I’ll take it. Now then.”

* * *

Danny was playing chess with one of the lonelier ghosts in midtown, a faint green gal named Gloria.  She moved regular pieces that she kept on her at all times over the board, like normal. Danny, however, made little constructs of pieces from his ectoplasm, wanting practice with precision.  Danny moved his knight and took Gloria’s bishop, grinning in satisfaction. “I think I might actually win this match Gloria.” Before she could respond  _ crack _ a brilliant orange flame exploded behind Danny.  A hand reached out and grabbed Danny by the jumpsuit collar, and memories flooded his mind as he was yanked through.  Once Danny processed what was happening, he pulled his hand away from James’ neck, smoldering green plasma dissipating in his other palm.  “You are an idiot, just like me.”

James laughed beneath him and Danny rolled his eyes.  “I’m proud of you dad,” James said, “For owning up to your own stupidity.”  Danny groaned and shoved one of Kitty’s throw pillows into the doppelganger's face.

“Now that your freak out is done with,” Elle said from her position on the other couch, holding a quarter empty glass.  “Do you know what’s going on? Or do I get to explain it all to you in my dramatic storytelling voice?” Elle’s pitch dropped and Danny snorted, shaking his head.

“James told me through our link,” Danny said, flopping down with a groan.  “I was hoping I’d never have to deal with Ghostwriter again. Guy was a nightmare.”  Even with his eyes covered up, Danny could still see Kitty glaring at him and backtracked internally to make that sound like less of an insult.  “He’s a terrifying nerd and shouldn’t have held up the only copy of his book for the world to behold without like, ectoshielding.” That didn’t make it better.  “Plus,” Danny said, flipping onto his back and the air, “with his powers he coulda just rhymed ‘though my book is now in twain, watch me make it whole again’ and it’d have been fixed.”

“Are you done with your salt rant,” James asked, now sitting on the ceiling for some reason.  “Cause I know you’re going to tell him something better than that, ghost of Christmas Salt.” A snowball formed in Danny’s hand mid throw, caught smoothly by James.  “How do you freeze things through all the salt encrusting your core?”

“I control vibrational energy,” Danny said, “not water.  You know that.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck, the thought of being permanently turned into a book - no truce protection for him now - not so appealing a possible response to apologizing and then asking for help right away.  Nor was getting eaten by those stone lions or pierced by a thousand quills, pens, and pencils. “Alright,” Danny said, “ yeah, I’m done. Thanks for the directions, Kitty. James, think you can get us to GW?”

James cocked his head to the side, turning it to stare at one of the walls.  For a few long moments he said nothing, and Danny and Elle floated up to him.  Eventually, he nodded and orange flames licked at his fingertips. “Yeah,” James said.  “I can get us within like, five minutes of easy flight of his place. I don’t think he’ll want a fireball opening up too close to his library though so no closer.”

“Hey punks,” Johnny said.  “Make sure you get everyone out of that place when you go, not just the new wraith kid, got it?”

“Burn the place to the ground when you’re done,” Kitty said.  “Make sure to take pictures.”

“Since this’ll be a covert operation,” Elle said, “I’m not sure if I’m gonna be taking my phone with me.  But if I can, I’ll get you a picture, sure.” James flicked his hands and the flames wrapped around the trio of Phantoms.  “Later!”

Kitty and Johnny’s lair was gone, obscured by flames that closed in on them like a solid force.  They squeezed the three of them together and pushed them forward before letting them all expand out of it.  James blew the cinders off of his gloves and reclined. “Well, that was fun. I’m not doing it for another few minutes.”  James reached out and grabbed onto Danny, who rolled his eyes and tugged him along. “Maybe twelve of them.”

As the three of them flew onward, Elle cleared her throat.  “So I’ve been thinking,” she said. “This is basically declaring war, right?  So, doesn’t that mean we’ll be hitting GIW bases globally after this?” Elle flew in a lazy circle around Danny and James.  “You said that more wraiths are gonna be popping up around the world, right? That means that the GIW are gonna find them on the other continents, and we’ll need to be ready to launch assaults on all of them to free captured spirits and ghosts.  How many allies do you have, Danny?”

“I’m friends with lady Pandora the all gifted,” Danny said, “Frostbite of the Far Frozen, queen Dorothea of the kingdom of Aragon, I made up with Sidney Poindexter, I’m friends with Clockwork but they’re a neutral party unless the entire Netherworld is in danger, Wulf who can teleport anywhere but only speaks Esperanto, you, and most of the neighborhood ghosts around Amity Park.”

“Don’t forget,” James said, still not pulling his own weight.  “You made nice with Nocturn too, who was apparently just testing you for Clocky.”

“Right, so I’ve got the master of Dreams on my side,” Danny said.  “Other than them, though, I don’t exactly have a bunch of worldwide Allies.”  He threw James ahead of him into Elle’s path, chuckling when she was knocked back.  “Unless you count Sam and Tucker’s friends, then I’ve got  _ very _ influential friends overseas.”

“Tuck has like, hacktivist friends, right?”  Elle tapped her chin and stood on James’ back, riding him like a surfboard toward the giant library in the distance.  “I could technically go through the network that he uses to communicate with them to-”

“No, because Tuck will never let you do that,” Danny said.  “It’d be a breach of his friends’ trust and might compromise their system.  But, we can have Jim search around for them after Tuck confirms that they’re ok with receiving our portals.”  Danny made a blob of stretchy material with his ectoplasm and molded it in his hands. “We should probably discuss that in depth with him.”

“Something else to discuss,” Elle said, pointing ahead.  “Are those lions going to come to life and eat us?” Danny looked ahead and snorted.  He didn’t say no, because he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Maybe,” he said instead as they approached the library.  “Wouldn’t be surprised. Skulker should do that with his own lair to go with the hunter motif.”  Ahead was a building made of what looked like pure marble, the size of a city block in all dimensions and carved with a clear book theme.  The columns, as well as each window, all resembled the spine of a book. The rooftops were upside down books, and one red glass dome. Walking up the stairs, Danny would estimate that the lions were about 7 feet tall each, maybe more.  At the purple double doors, Danny took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “Ok, here goes something.” He knocked on the door three times. Each strike echoed loudly and Danny winced at the noise. “Why are these echoic? It’s a library and that’s just asking for noise from any polite visitors.”

“That’d be new,” a deep, familiar voice said as the doors swung open.  “I haven’t quite seen a polite visitor in decades. Do you plan to change that, Phantom?”  The Ghostwriter grinned down at them, shark-like teeth gleaming in the green light of the air around them, and Danny couldn’t help but grin back.  The banter was good, that was familiar.

“Well, I was hoping to,” Danny said, holding out his hand.  “I’m Danny Phantom, nice to meet you. This is Elle, and this is James.  How are you, Ghostwriter?” The writer rolled his eyes, but also shook Danny’s hand and kept grinning.  “I came to apologize to you,” Danny said, setting down on the ground fully. “I shouldn’t have destroyed your Christmas poem, even if it was an accident.”  Ghostwriter’s expression had fallen to neutrality, usually not a good thing for Danny. “I should’ve gone to an uninhabited island to vent instead of shooting into the void since my aim resembles my Dad’s when I’m mad.”  Elle and James snorted behind him and Danny gave them both a tiny zap without breaking eye contact. “I should’ve apologized instead of throwing my humbug tantrum in your face, and so for both that and destroying your book, I apologize.”

There was a moment of silence when Danny thought that he and the others would have to fight their way away from the library, could even feel James’ energy building up in his core.  A wave of relief washed over Danny when Ghostwriter smiled and nodded. “Did you rehearse that on the way here, or did you make it up on the spot?”

“I spent a good five minutes working on that, I’ll have you know,” Danny said with a grin.  “It was hard to concentrate on it with this idiot muttering in my head about the assembly of architecture in a place full of wood manipulating people.”  Danny gave James a quick heatless glare, receiving a sunny grin in return.

“C’mon, it’s an interesting thing to think about!”  James snatched Elle out of the air when she tensed up to pounce, and Danny laughed.

“See?  Insufferable,” Danny said, turning back to look at Ghostwriter.  “So, I probably shouldn’t ask so quickly but, was my apology accepted?”

“That depends,” Ghostwriter said, looking at Elle and James.  “Are they going to repeat your mistakes?”

“I can’t speak for them,” Danny said before either Phantom could.  “However, I can promise you that I won’t damage a single one of your books again.  Phantom’s honor.” Danny gave a three-fingered salute and Ghostwriter huffed out a small laugh.

“Alright, yes,” Ghostwriter said, “Your apology is accepted Phantom.  Now, come on in,” he said, floating backward into his lair. “I have a feeling that you have questions for me.  Most teenagers are too stubborn to admit to their mistakes unless they get something out of that admission.”

“It’s not actually him that gets anything out of this,” Elle said, squirming free once more from James’ hold by turning human.  “Unless you count the satisfaction of knowing you’re a bigger person counts. I was told by Kitty that you can not only heal other ghosts, but teach someone how to heal other ghosts and spirits.”  Ghostwriter’s eyes widened the slightest bit. “I’m learning from my caretaker on earth how to heal earthly beings, but as far as spirits and ghosts go, I need an actual resident of this place to teach me.”

“Well,” Ghostwriter said, “I have always wanted to be a teacher.  Tell me, what brings on this desire to learn?”

The Phantoms flew in, telling Ghostwriter what was happening and taking in the library around them.  Bookshelves that stretched up a whole story high lined the walls, marched across the floor in rows, and curled around little reading nooks and study areas dotted around the place.  Each little sitting place had two couches, some chairs, and a wooden table. At one such reading study area, the four of them sat down and Ghostwriter summoned over cups of hot chocolate for them all.  Once James finished adding on his last bit about the strategies he was coming up with, the Ghostwriter sipped the coffee he had poured himself and set it down. “Well,” he said, “Your cause is definitely a noble one.  I’ll teach you, gladly. I will also want to be contacted if anything goes catastrophically wrong and you all need assistance.”

“That’s reasonable,” Danny said.  “We can keep in contact with you. James?”

“Here ya go,” James said, holding his hand out.  Bright orange flames danced in his palm, curling in on themselves and twisting into bright green.  James closed his hand, and when he opened it a pair of Fenton Phones appeared. “These are the devices we use to keep in contact with each other.  Sorta like Bluetooth but a far wider range of signal and connected almost only to each other.”

“I have a question,” Elle said, once again in Phantom form and raising her hand.  Ghostwriter pointed to her with a smile. “So, Danny told me that he’s a cold core,” the writer snorted at that, “So what kind of core do you have?  Is there a way to find out what kind of core I am right now?”

“Alright,” Ghostwriter said, “Daniel, you aren’t a cold core. I remember your little backstory from when I was writing you into my poem, and you aren’t all that cheery when it gets cold.  Secondly,” Ghostwriter turned back to Elle. “I can definitely tell you what kind of core you are, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant process if you don’t calm down.” Elle sat still quickly and Danny suppressed a laugh, not wanting to interrupt.  Ghostwriter held out his hand, as did Elle, and when the two touched, purple light reached out of the ghost-like veins. They reached into Elle’s hand and Danny could see the purple light racing from her hand to her elbow, shoulder and then it settled in the center of her chest.  The Ghostwriter’s eyes were blank, purely purple, and Elle’s were a perfect green. The purple light withdrew and Ghostwriter hummed. “Well, looks like you’re a life core. Perfect for our lessons, what I teach you should come naturally.”

“Woah,” Elle said, leaning on Danny’s shoulder.  “That felt trippy.”

“I got a question too,” James said.  “You said the bossman isn’t a cold core, and while I  _ might _ buy that,” he waved a hand at Danny’s face.  “What kind of core is he, if not cold? I haven’t seen any other special powers from him besides ice stuff.”

“The exact name of your type of core is debated,” Ghostwriter said.  “I felt it when I had trapped you, and it was very similar to vortex’s, but after a quick look deeper - I had you trapped for a while longer than you think - I saw you’re a bit more than that.  It’ll take a while for you to develop anything particularly significant beyond your cold powers though.” Ghostwriter waved his hand and a blackish purple void appeared above them all, filling itself in with dots of light.  “You have an obsession with the night sky, yes? That’s what we call either a star core, a celestial core, or an astral core.”

Before Danny could think of a reason why that didn’t sound all that right beyond  _ I am nothing like Vortex _ James intervened.  “Well that explains why Vortex’s powers got transferred into Danny, and sorta how we can turn our bodies into clouds, and the cool bursts of electrical energy we can use for attacks if we’re feeling like it.”  James held up a sparking hand and Danny sent a jolt of energy into the other’s shoulder. “Ow! Dude, why, I just sorted out your doubts with anecdotal evidence. Your own anecdotes too!”

“How’s this,” Ghostwriter said.  “You three leave for now, and I’ll contact you once I’m ready to start Elle’s lesson.  I’m not interested in watching you all bicker, and I’m sure all three of you will be doing so as immediately as possible.”

“Alright,” Elle said while grabbing up her family and pulling them into the air.  “We’ll be going then, and yes I’ll definitely explain me and James to you at some point if you really want me to.”  Before either boy could complain, Elle was dragging them out of the library with a laugh.

* * *

Valerie soared over Amity Park, scanners trained on the hospital below.  She picked up on 10 different ectosignatures hovering around it. Not unusual, people died in hospitals and there hadn’t been any attacks there  _ yet _ .  The strange thing was when the 10 would disperse and 10 more would take their places for an hour.  This had happened at least three times now, and Valerie noticed that they were mostly circling the floor that Kwan was on.  “What is going on here?” Valerie dove to catch one of the fleeing ghosts, but the others zoomed past her, distracting the huntress until all of them had gotten away.  “These ghosts are organized,” Val said to herself, rising back up above the hospital. “But by who and what for?”

Once Valerie cleared the roof of the hospital, a  _ crack _ filled the air and a fireball appeared only a few yards from the hospital.  She trained her weapons on it when Phantom flew out of the thing, waved at it, and it vanished.  Phantom then waved at the ghosts that had been circling the building and they flew toward him. One of them must have mentioned her presence since Phantom looked straight up at her afterward.  Phantom, probably aware of Valerie zooming in for the best shot, gave her that stupid grin of his and turned back to the ghosts. The other ghosts faded from view once again and Phantom flew off.  “Damn it,” Valerie said before shooting off after him. The ghosts hadn’t hurt Kwan yet and if Danny was their organizer, they weren’t going to.

Once Val and Phantom were side by side, he waved again.  “Hey Val, wonderful afternoon isn’t it?” He eyed her warily and raised a brow.  “Our truce is still in effect right?”

Grinning behind her visor, Valerie pointed to a rooftop and shouted, “We need to talk, Danny,” over the winds.  Phantom slowed down and Valerie raised a brow.

“Geeze, are you breaking up our rivalry Val?”  Phantom flew down to the rooftop that Val had pointed to anyways, Valerie a step behind the whole time to keep him in her sights.  “Those aren’t words anyone wants to hear.”

“Alright, shut up.  I’m gonna talk, you will listen, and we’ll go from there, got it?”  Danny nodded and Valerie sucked on her teeth. “Alright. When I found out about Elle, it wasn’t hard to figure out that you’re a half ghost too.  I looked back on the things that I said and did to you and I was a little more than disgusted.” Valerie shuddered at the memory of Danny suspended and restrained by every limb.  The fear on his face and the pain in his scream haunted her some nights. “I tortured you and was going to do that to you until you were nothing, all because I thought you had ruined my life.”  Danny was quiet, his feet were now touching the roof, and his face was unnaturally blank.

“While I admit that was a stretch since my dad is alive and I was uninjured, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” she continued.  “I get that you couldn’t tell me before when I was shoot first and question later. But when I was grounded from hunting, and we were dating, my equipment destroyed - by you - there was no way for me to hurt you beyond breaking up with you.  You could’ve told me what was going on, you could’ve explained Axion, you could’ve told me about Vlad!” Noting that the building they were on was both abandoned and vacant, Val let an arm-cannon materialize in a flash of red light and blasted a hole in the roof.  “Instead you let me believe you were nothing but a ghost, I got bonded to my gear and now… now I might as well call myself half ghost like you - I know you can sense me like the others, I’ve watched how you react to ghosts around you and how you always look when I enter a room.  That means I’ve got an ectosignature like you do, and that means the GIW will be all over my ass if they get that law passed same as you!” Valerie took aim at the symbol on Danny’s chest and dropped her visor to make sure that her glare carried its fullest force. “Tell me why you thought it was a good idea to let all of this happen when all you had to do was  _ talk?” _

Danny stared at her with wide eyes and opened his mouth.  No sound came out and he closed it. This happened a few times before white rings of light washed over him.  The hazmat was replaced with a star print shirt and a pair of denim jeans, tanned skin paled, white turned black and those wide green eyes became wider blue ones.  “The first time someone wants me to talk and I forget how,” Danny muttered and combed a hand through the rat's nest he called hair. “Okay so, firstly, Elle is doing great.  Practically adopted by a magick lady in Brazil.” That earned a small smile from Valerie and she felt herself relax. The cannon was retracted and Valerie crossed her arms. “Axiom...Cujo wasn’t my dog.  He was an Axiom euthanized guard dog looking for his squeaky toy. Haven’t seen him since we found it.” Danny grimaced and added, “I  _ am _ sorry about the damage though.”

Danny transformed back into Phantom and the two of them sat on the edge of the rooftop.  “When Technus took over your stuff, I fucked up. That was my big fuck up. I guess I was just afraid you’d tell my parents - who’d then vivisect me or something like that - or you’d be so disgusted with me that you’d grab one of their guns and shoot me in my sleep or something.”  Val glared at him for a moment, but ultimately shook her head.

“Alright, I guess old me might’ve done something that stupid if you had told me right after you blew up the armor,” she admitted.  “But after that? We were dating for like, two weeks.”

“I was being selfish,” Danny admitted.  “Making sure that I was safe and ignoring all signs of Technus pushing us toward each other even after Sam and Tuck flat out told me that it was him.  I didn’t wanna believe that it wasn’t our natural chemistry but some emotionally stunted technophile with a god complex that  _ isn’t _ my best friend.  I screwed you and your dad over for no good reason, and I’m sorry.”  Danny stood up and spread his arms out “You can take a shot if you want.  I’ve only been hit once by an ectoblast all day after all.”

Valerie snorted and rolled her eyes at him.  The arm cannon popped back up on her arm and fired a ball of sizzling ectoplasma that burned away some of Danny’s hair.  “I’m not that bad of a person, jerk.” Danny sighed and Val retracted her gun. “Now, why are ghosts hovering around Kwan in squads?”

“Fuck, you noticed that,” Danny muttered with a wince.  “Well, we’ve got a situation going on with Kwan and other wraiths.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talking things out can and will solve most problems in a super hero story

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to note that the reason why I got through The Summoning - with it's plot holes and lapses in direction and characterization - was because I got so many reviews. I'm not saying i'm going to stop with this due to a lack thereof, I've put too much work into it to do something like that, but I am asking that you give me some idea of what you thought of the chapter. Please and thank you! and Remember, reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!


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